Discontinued Ranma Stories
by Racke
Summary: Yup, I've been writing and discarding things for this fandom too. Again, it's pretty much Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
1. Collection Chapter 1

Discontinued Ranma Stories: Collection Chapter 1

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Cat-Ranma  
>Ranma the Cursed Child<br>Ranma the Cursed Girl  
>Their Peculiar Life<br>Invasion of the Mind

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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**Story**: [Cat-Ranma]

**Summary**: A fractured mind is a dangerous thing. Especially when you begin putting it under pressure.

**Genre**: Friendship?

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The thing about trauma is that it tends to be a bit more complicated than people would originally assume.

For example, something that might bring the person suffering from trauma comfort, might not do so endlessly.

When dealing with extreme trauma, to the extent where upon activation it actually mutates into a second personality, things get even more complex. Because even if someone could make those two personalities switch back to normal, if something changed between how the personalities interacted or what served to motivate them, then that ability would be just as likely to fail as succeed.

Of course, none of the members of the Tendo household were capable of understanding psychology to a degree that went beyond guilt-tripping and blackmail. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they didn't think it very important when Ranma got a bit too exposed to some cats again.

Only... cat-Ranma apparently didn't want to take a nap in Akane's lap, and was seemingly quite content with staying awake for now.

This was their first clue that something was wrong.

Their second one was when cat-Ranma cheerfully dropped a dead pigeon on Kasumi's doorstep the next morning.

And then wiped the floor with both of the fathers when they protested what they assumed was harassment, rather than stemming from – as any cat-owner could've told them – it being common cat-courtesy to bring an offering to the food-provider.

Which made the residents of the Tendo household realize that not only was cat-Ranma sticking around for a possibly indeterminate time in the future, they couldn't actually force him to do anything he didn't want to, and apparently they'd accidentally adopted a humanoid cat.

So, in an attempt to figure out what bizarre martial arts technique was responsible for locking Ranma into the Nekoken, the girls set off to explain the situation to Cologne.

Unfortunately, Cologne didn't know of any techniques like that, but readily admitted that the Nekoken was forbidden for a reason, and that most of those who'd tried learning had simply gone insane.

"Of course they did." Happosai scoffed at the Amazon. "The Nekoken is designed to fracture the psyche into two parts, and if you mess up the fracturing by any stretch, then what you end up with is useless." He puffed a bit on his pipe. "For example, there needs to be only one fraction, with one human-personality and one cat-personality. But if you make the cat-personality too small it'll be too weak to actually take over, meaning that the Nekoken training will continue since nobody would notice it. And if you make it too big the human-part will never stand a chance. And if you try 'easing' a person into the fracture you're just going to make more fractures and turn one cat-personality into several tiny little cat-personalities who're just as likely to try and kill each other as they are to turn into a pride and work together against the human-part."

The women surrounding him gaped at the shriveled up old man as he explained things that _nobody_ had any actual knowledge of.

"Why do you know so much about it?" Akane demanded.

Happosai frowned slightly. "Because my idiot-pupil exposed the closest thing I have to a proper heir to it." Before smirking evilly at Cologne. "And I travel a lot more than the Amazons."

"That still doesn't explain why he's acting weird _now_." Nabiki pointed out reasonably, not wanting to get caught up in the middle of a fight between the two elderly and ridiculously strong martial artists.

Happosai shrugged. "Maybe he decided to stop fighting it."

"'Fighting it'? Why would he need to fight it? He's already learned the technique, right?" Akane asked, confused.

"It creates a second personality." Happosai repeated himself. "That means that they're constantly struggling for who gets to walk around in his body, even if only subconsciously, and the cat needs Ranma to be exposed to something traumatic enough that all he can think of is to 'run away', before it's capable of taking over. However, since Ranma hates running away, that can only really happen when he's confronted with cats or something that he's equally terrified of. But... the Saotome ultimate technique is designed with the concept of 'running away', and if he thinks that he needs to use it, but is unable to perform it physically, then he might resort to doing it mentally."

"So... he's still in there? Just letting the cat have free reign since he wants to run away?" Akane looked as if she wasn't sure if she should be working herself up into a rage or not.

Happosai shrugged. "The cat is still Ranma, Ranma is still the cat. It might just be that he realized that they're technically one and the same, and decided to give his other half a bit of time to breathe fresh air of its own."

XXX

Having a humanoid cat in the household took a bit of time to get used to.

Especially considering how the cat in question – like most cats – didn't have a human sense of modesty, and could therefore be spotted in various states of undress by people in various state of undress.

Akane also learned that whilst cat-Ranma wouldn't attack her for hitting him with a mallet, he seemed to consider it a very entertaining game to be played, and she usually collapsed from exhaustion before she ever managed to launch him skywards.

Genma learned that waking a cat up by tossing it into water didn't so much make it enthusiastic for training as it made it _determined_. He would later lament over his overly-violent son taking out his aggressions on the delicate elderly.

Nabiki sold the images of Genma being most thoroughly trashed to various fiancees and their associated families, who all took great enjoyment from seeing the man – who'd run out on whatever specific agreement they'd had – in such pain.

Otherwise, things went on in a mostly normal way for the Tendo family.

Kasumi cooked, Soun and Genma 'played' – read: 'cheated at' – shogi, Happosai stole panties, Hinako stole chi, Principal Kuno attacked people with pineapple-bombs... Life went on as normal in Nerima, even without the conscious input of what once one of the greatest focal points for its chaos.

Shampoo tried to take advantage of her cat-form in an attempt to get closer to Ranma, only to discover that cat-Ranma saw her as an unusually self-centered kitten that could do well with spending some time sitting in a corner to think about what she'd done.

That Cologne reacted to her granddaughter's indignant predicament by snickering helplessly... well, she excused herself with it being about time for the girl to learn to curb her impulsiveness, though she doubted that a cat would be able to teach what she herself had so far failed at.

All of the fiancees tried at some point to coax Ranma back into his usual self, and all of them failed.

Not that cat-Ranma appeared to dislike them by any stretch of the word, seemingly quite enjoying their company in the cat's usual cheerful way.

Then came the day that Ryoga finally returned from Brazil – and its many blizzards – and found that his greatest rival had lost his mind when he'd been away.

So he laughed.

Then he went on a happy rant about it, but realized halfway through it that he couldn't gloat properly if Ranma wasn't around to hear it in person, and then came to a second realization in that he would never be able to defeat Ranma in combat and reclaim his honor – or as vengeance for causing whatever he blamed Ranma for at that particular moment – and therefore promptly collapsed in panicking despair.

At which point cat-Ranma butted her head into the boy's shoulder, and purred delightedly.

As Ranma was female at the time, and Ryoga was still ridiculously weak to females – even ones who technically weren't – this lead to Ryoga kind of forgetting about his despair for a moment.

And that was how Akane arrived home from school to find cat-Ranma happily playing tag with the closest thing that Ranma had ever had to a best friend.

Ryoga had a conflicted expression on his face, but he seemed just as likely to smile sadly at the cat-person as he was to frown.

So, curious about what might be said in such a peculiar moment for the two of them, Akane took a page out of Nabiki's book and quietly sneaked closer.

And when Ranma happily curled up on Ryoga's lap in a way that made the boy blush helplessly, she listened to Ryoga's mumbling argument with himself as he scratched cat-Ranma behind her ears.

Which was how she learned of 'P-chan', and a promise that Ranma had made and that Ryoga had been too embarrassingly terrified to admit to.

It was lucky that Akane had tried to mallet cat-Ranma on more than one occasion, since her lack of success at hitting the annoyingly skilled martial artist had after several attempts led to her giving up on being able to do it. Because if she hadn't grown used to not being able to solve her immediate problems by applying a mallet to Ranma's head, she might've introduced a mallet to Ryoga's head until it was splattered across most of Nerima.

Still, that kind of explained why P-chan so desperately tried to flee the room whenever she changed. It also explained why he ended up in the closet every time he failed to do so. Ryoga had a tendency to get himself quite lost after all.

So she remained hidden, and she listened to Ryoga silently voicing his problems to what Akane was slowly realizing was quite possibly the closest thing that the lost boy had to a best friend, mind-fracturing phobia and all.

"So... why did you run away?" Ryoga finally asked the cat purring in his lap, having grown used enough to the presence that he could actively ignore the way that some parts of Ranma's female anatomy pressed into him in very interesting ways. "Was it the fiancees? Or the manly-thing?" He continued, hoping for an answer but obviously not expecting one. So he shook his head, and began to speak of the horrors of being lost amidst Canada's endless sand dunes, and how the northern light looked beautiful from the merciless glaciers of Spain.

Akane listened, and the more she listened the more she wondered at how it was highly likely that Ryoga was just as insane as cat-Ranma, because nobody could actually get _that_ lost, could they?

Still, it was weird, seeing the two boys – even if Ranma was in his girl-form – getting along so amiably when they would usually try so gleefully to bring down nearby houses on each other's heads.

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**Story**: [Ranma the Cursed Child]

**Summary**: Ranma falls into two springs, and isn't happy about the result. But then again, children are supposed to be socially awkward.

**Genre**: Humor

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Ranma broke the surface, spluttering.

His dad had turned into a _panda_, and then the bastard had _kicked him into another pool_!

Staggering to his feet, Ranma blinked at the realization that he'd gotten shorter. But he seemed to have all of his appendages and wasn't covered in fur, so that was kind of good, except he _liked_ being tall!

Turning around to try and find his father, Ranma realized too late what his lack of height implied about his current choice in clothing. Namely, the fact that extremely durable wet silk was suddenly clinging to his under-sized body in a way that made movement a lot more complicated than he'd anticipated.

He had enough time to scream, and then he hit the water again. The water of a different pool.

When he broke the surface, spluttering, this time around, he was _very_ careful about crawling back out of the pool.

Thankfully, he still had all of his limbs – even if they were still far too small and fragile-looking for his peace of mind – and he wasn't covered in fur – though his hair seemed to have turned red this time – and everything was still-...

Ranma's eyes grew wide as he groped after something that he had been in possession of mere moments ago, something that was rather important to him as a person. Or rather, something that very much classified him as _male_.

Ranma's horrified whimpering was interrupted by the Guide who'd finally recovered from his exclamation of it being 'very bad' to fall into two springs with 'terribly tragic story', and finally pointed out which springs that Ranma had fallen into.

Spring of Drowned Young Boy, and Spring of Drowned Girl.

And he also mentioned something about there being a 'temporary cure' but that two springs made everything 'complicated'.

Ranma would in the next few days come to absolutely _loathe_ that particular phrase.

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"Look, can you help or not?" Ranma glared at the old hag whom they'd been pointed towards upon entering the village.

The ancient-looking woman seemed to consider the question for a moment before answering. "Jusenkyo chooses its victims, and the pools are rarely the type to let go." She leveled serious eyes at the child in front of her. "Perhaps if you'd fallen into one or the other, something could've been done. But this?" She motioned to the child who'd just recently been doused in hot water and still remained the same age. "In thousands of years of Amazon history, I've never heard of this."

"So, that's a 'no'." Ranma guessed with exasperated bitterness. "Anything else you wanna say?"

The woman tilted her head in thought. "There's a way to see at least some of the extent the mixed curses are clinging to you." She finally relented. "It might give you an answer to if and how you will age from here on out."

Ranma paused, having not quite thought of that possibility just yet. "You're saying... I could end up stuck as a kid _forever_?"

The old woman shrugged. "Magic is unpredictable at the best of times." She eyed his diminutive form. "And Jusenkyo tends to be more unpredictable than most."

Hurriedly swallowing the insult that was dying to crawl out of his throat and launch itself with a wet splat at the old hag's wrinkled face, Ranma considered the offer silently.

"What do you get out of it?" He finally asked.

The woman smirked at him. "We rarely get the opportunity to study Jusenkyo's curses. Nobody wishes to draw the pools' ire to themselves, and the few who does are... 'reluctant' to participate in the process."

Ranma blinked, then snorted a laugh. "It hurts like hell, doesn't it?"

"The histories say that the screams could echo for days." The old hag confirmed with an unrepentant grin.

Had it been any other situation, Ranma would've told the woman to go stuff herself somewhere, but this procedure would at least tell him if the curse would keep him stuck in a child's body for the rest of his life, or if he'd simply be forced into a second childhood of sorts.

So he gritted his teeth, and he accepted.

Cologne was more than happy to help, because his case was an interesting one, and the opportunity to study Jusenkyo curses in this manner hadn't been seen since they'd been war with the Musk, and managed to capture a cursed individual – some sixteen-hundred years ago. Basically, even if the child didn't give her anything but the opportunity to implement the procedure, that would serve more than enough to pay his way into the Amazon's good graces.

It was really a shame that he was so young – and touched by Jusenkyo to boot – because he seemed at least moderately talented for a martial artist, and the village was always happy to receive new blood.

Shampoo in particular had been rather desperate to ensnare a husband who _wasn't_ Mousse, but it looked like she'd have to continue searching.

Such a shame.

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The Tendo family stared at the redheaded child that had been brought into their house by a panda.

"Right, could we get some hot water?" The child asked, sounding fairly miserable.

Which perhaps was fairly understandable considering that a panda had carried the redhead into their house, not to mention that they both looked like they'd been caught out in the rain.

Kasumi certainly seemed to think that such a request made perfect sense, as she soon presented the child with a kettle of hot water.

At which point the panda tipped the kettle over its head, and turned into a man.

Nabiki felt her eye start to twitch at the impossibility in front of her, Kasumi seemed surprised but otherwise took it in stride, Akane let out a startled squeak, and their father greeted the man with warm cheerfulness.

Nabiki briefly considered what it meant for her father, that he could handle pandas turning into old friends, without being overly distressed or surprised on the matter. Perhaps he'd lived through a very interesting youth, or maybe he'd just slipped so deeply into grief at the death of their mother that he'd gone completely insane.

The child finally managed to acquire some hot water for themselves – it really was too young to bet any money on what gender it belonged to – and tipped it over its own head, making its red hair turn black.

Nabiki listened to her father and the panda-man talk for a while, slowly beginning to realize that this child was in fact the 'Ranma' that their father had arranged for them to marry.

Turning to the child, she asked the first question that came to mind. "So, what kind of 'curse' did you get?"

The child glared up at her with surprising venom. "It's _complicated_." It spat out with distaste.

"How so?" Kasumi wondered curiously.

The child turned to the eldest Tendo, and seemed to have its temper falter despite itself. "I'm sixteen. And a guy. Except... I ended up with two curses... and they kind of mixed. So now it's just _complicated_." The boy's eye twitched as he spat out that last word once again.

Nabiki kind of got the feeling that she should avoid using any and all variations of the word 'complicate' in the boy's presence. He didn't look like he'd appreciate it.

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Needless to say, the engagement was called off, simply due to what seemed to have become a permanent and severe age-gap.

Neither of the fathers seemed happy about it, but then it wasn't like they could force a marriage on a nine-year-old anyway, no matter what the kid's birth-certificate said.

Ranma would be forced to relive puberty.

Even Akane managed to spare a pitying look for the boy once that had been explained to them.

Still, it wasn't like he'd actually learn anything if they put him with kids his own age, and his father had arranged his schooling before his de-aging accident, so – until someone complained about it – they just set him off to Furinkan with Akane and silently prayed that the four of them would get started on producing a second generation already so that the 'school's could be joined' at least in the generation after the anticipated one.

Nabiki really hoped that the two of them wouldn't have ideas and try and set her up with someone. Since they were both clearly unaware of what she was looking for in a man. That, and she was growing ever more certain that they were both completely nuts.

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When Ranma Saotome finally made his way back to the Tendo Dojo for the day, he was on the verge of convincing himself that murdering Tatewaki Kuno in his sleep was not only fully legal, it was something that would be encouraged by the populace – because pests needed to be exterminated, after all.

When Akane arrived, mere moments afterwards, she would've been happy to point him towards any place that sold pesticide in the neighborhood. Even if said 'pesticide' was technically classified as 'arsenic'. Heck, if she'd known the way, she would've happily volunteered to help him navigate all the way to the nearest hire-able assassins.

The reason for this eery synchronization in their thoughts, stemmed from the fact that Ranma had turned into a girl at some point. And Kuno had decided that she was precious and adorable and that he was going to take her back home with him.

It was one thing for the perverted bastard to try and beat her up so that she would date him – she was after all perfectly capable of defending herself. But to go after a _child_... well... even the ones most easily swayed by Kuno's speeches, had shied away from him as if he was a leper, once they'd figured out that that's what he wanted to do.

From Ranma's point of view, it was less with regards to her apparent age at the time, and more to do with it being the first time anyone actually did anything resembling flirting with her in female form.

Kuno was in fact the first person in Ranma's life, other than a couple of old ladies, who'd ever commented on his 'attractiveness'. And those ladies had always just labeled him 'cute', regardless of which gender he'd been.

There was something deeply disturbing about having some madman – that was disgustingly enough nearly three times her size – lunging for her whilst seemingly implying things that – thankfully for Ranma's continued innocence on the subject – kept flying over her head. But even if she wasn't entirely sure what the hell the guy had been talking about, it was clear that he was treating her like a _girl_, which was kind of disgusting all on its own. Because yuck, _girls_. Eww.

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**Story**: [Ranma the Cursed Girl]

**Summary**: Ranma is born as a girl, but the Saotome have always been a stubborn lot. Much to her annoyance.

**Genre**: Humor, Crack

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Onlookers turned to stare at the young man fighting a panda through the streets of Nerima.

Partly because one of the fighters was a _panda_, but also in no small part because both fighters seemed uncaring for that pesky law of gravity as they bounced across rooftops and off of walls.

"Dammit pops! I need to get back there! I don't have time to visit some friend of yours! I need to fix this damn thing!" The pigtailed boy yelled at the panda, who seemed disinclined to listen.

In fact, it seemed to be herding the boy towards some unknown destination in the midst of their violence. But that was absurd, because even if someone could imagine pandas learning martial arts and fighting across rooftops in defiance of gravity, having a panda know how to be _sneaky_ was just stretching the imagination.

They were gigantic bears who ate leaves. Probably because the pandas' ancestor had realized one day that trying to sneak up on anything more capable of fleeing than leaves attached to plants was an exercise in futility.

Apparently, the boy didn't agree with the idea of a sneaky panda being laughable, because he seemed to notice the trend of being herded, and promptly darted in the opposite direction of where the panda wanted him to go. Just out of spite.

The panda proved to be rather unforgiving about this sudden attitude, and smacked the boy over the head with a street sign when he had his back turned.

As the watchers stared in disbelieving awe, the panda then pulled the boy over a shoulder and began making its way in the same direction to which it'd been herding the now-unconscious boy.

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The Tendo family stared with a mixture of disbelieving horror and terrified confusion at the panda who calmly walked into their house, carrying a struggling boy over its shoulder.

"Put me down, you idiot! I ain't marrying nobody, and that's final!" The boy argued loudly as he tried to kick the panda in the face.

Then he was put down, right in front of the father and his three daughters.

"So... this is Ranma Saotome?" Nabiki guessed, vaguely interested in the cute boy, but slightly hesitant about both his obvious reluctance to the situation and the fact that there was still a panda in the room.

The boy blinked, fidgeting uncomfortably on the spot as his eyes sought out all the escape routes he could find, only to recognize the panda behind him readying itself to intercept each and every one of them.

"Yeah... sorry 'bout this." He finally admitted in a resigned tone.

XXX

Kasumi wasted no time to pass the engagement on towards her younger sisters, not really interested in males who were so much younger than her, but felt a little bit guilty at forcing her sisters to deal with the problem instead.

Nabiki appeared to consider it for a long moment, before – after a glance towards her seething younger sister who was looking just about ready to rip someone's throat out – deciding that perhaps the fallout would be more manageable if she dealt with the engagement on her own. At the very least, it would keep Kasumi from being forced to clean the blood off the walls.

"Fine. I'll do it." She finally relented, making her little sister torn between relief and obvious distaste to her older sister's perversions.

Nabiki had been waiting for the day when her little sister would recognize boys as something interesting, rather than something with cooties, for several years now. So far, she was beginning to consider taking bets on when she'd finally come out of her closet instead of what kind of man she'd end up with.

"Wonderful!" Her father cheered happily, clearly ecstatic about the news that at least one of his daughters hadn't tried to slip away from the agreement he'd reached with his old friend.

The boy didn't look happy though, seemingly more torn between hesitant horror and guilt.

"But what's up with the panda?" Nabiki continued, narrowing her eyes at the endangered species.

"It's a curse." The boy groaned. "Pops thought that Jusenkyo was a training ground, and fell into the Spring of Drowned Panda, now he turns into a panda with cold water." He shook his head. "It reverses when applied with hot water."

"Oh my, that's quite unusual." Kasumi noted from her spot.

"That's what he gets for not learning the damn language." Ranma growled, sending a glare towards what was apparently his father.

Nabiki couldn't quite suppress the sudden amused twitch of her lips at the boy's obvious annoyance. It sounded like he had a personal grudge about the incident. Possibly he'd nearly fallen into one of the springs himself.

"Did anything else happen?" She asked curiously, always happy to have more information to work with.

"He kicked me into another spring." Ranma muttered, his eyes taking on a vaguely demonic sheen to them as he glared at his father.

Slightly taken aback by just how scary those pretty blue eyes could seem when the boy who possessed them was mad, Nabiki had to reluctantly admit to understanding why he wouldn't be happy to be cursed to turn into something just because the idiot who dragged him there kicked him into a spring of his own.

Then she realized something.

"Wait... but it's raining outside?" Nabiki glanced outside, and sure enough, it was still raining.

"Spring of Drowned Boy." The boy spat out with unholy vehemence and shot another glare at his father, before again turning to the Tendos, bowing politely. "My parents are both idiots, but I'm a girl. Sorry 'bout this."

Soun fainted on the spot.

XXX

"So... let me get this straight." Nabiki started after her father had regained consciousness. "Your parents were hoping for a boy, and so when they had a girl, they decided that 'she' was a 'he' and refused to believe otherwise no matter what?"

Ranma nodded, cheeks turning a bit red. "I'm just glad I figured out that they were wrong _before_ they sent me to an all-boys school."

"You nearly went to an all-boys school?" Nabiki had to suppress the urge to smile at the other girl's misfortune.

The girl – Kasumi had supplied her with some hot water whilst they waited for their father to return to consciousness – in front of her shrugged. "Actually, I _went_ to an all-boys school. For a year. Then pops dragged me off on a training trip to China."

"Wha-?" Akane looked horrified. "But those are for _boys_!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't have a say in it, okay?" Ranma frowned. "I dunno why nobody there figured out that I was girl though. Because..." She glanced down at her surprisingly well-developed chest. "Well, these aren't _that_ new."

Nabiki stared at her for a moment, admitting that the boys at her school must've been insane to miss such obvious signs of femininity, before asking a question. "Did you like it there?"

Ranma blinked, startled, before turning to the middle sister. "Umm... well... it wasn't _horrible_... I guess."

Nabiki continued to stare at her, a predatory smile creeping over her lips. "Were any of the boys cute?"

Ranma's face exploded into red. "N-No!" She, if possible, managed to turn even redder at her own outburst, before she coughed and schooled her features. "I didn't have time for noticing that kind of thing." She stated, but tellingly refused to meet anyone's eyes.

"Oh, but did you at least make any friends?" Nabiki pretended as if she'd believed the obvious girl as she steered the subject towards something that might give an explanation.

Still looking a little bit awkward, Ranma's cheeks once again took on a slight shade of pink as she remembered her school life. "Ah... well, there was Ryoga." She admitted, a small happy smile sneaking onto her face.

_Gotcha._ Was the thought that was so loud that it seemed to echo between the walls of the living room. Or maybe that was just because Nabiki's family had gotten used to reading the middle sister's expressions.

"Oh? What was he like?" Nabiki began to fish for information, careful not to activate any of the surprisingly shy girl's defenses.

Ranma's happy smile turned into something akin to exasperatedly amused as she tried to think of how to describe him. "He could get lost _anywhere_. I swear, I'm not entirely sure he knew the direction that was 'forward'." A giggle escaped her as she shook her head at some memory. "We usually went to school together, and this one time, he'd somehow gotten himself lost inside of his own closet, so I had to lead him out of _there_ before leading him to school."

Nabiki felt her eyebrows climbing to the hairline. Okay, so Furinkan was not a place for sane and stable individuals – cough Kuno cough – but she'd never heard of anyone having a sense of direction that was _that_ bad. The fact that Ranma seemed quite fond of the boy in spite of being directionally challenged was also a bit strange to her – but that was perhaps mostly because insanity at Furinkan was usually related to the Kuno family, and nobody could think of those people fondly.

It was perhaps for the best that Nabiki was unable to fish for any more information, as it seemed that Genma had finally returned from being ignored and hastily injected his opinion on the matter.

"Stupid boy! Men don't giggle!" He yelled, suddenly appearing behind the girl and punting her into the pond.

When Ranma – as a boy – emerged from the cold waters, he was not amused. "Dammit pops! I ain't a man! I'm a _girl_!"

The fight that immediately broke out proved beyond any hesitation or doubt that though his father must've been completely insane to believe his daughter to be a male, Genma Saotome knew a lot on how to teach someone martial arts.

XXX

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XXX

**Story**: [Their Peculiar Life]

**Summary**: They were born to four different parents, they were the youngest and the only child, and they were one person in two bodies.

**Genre**: Spiritual, Family?

XX

Souls are interesting things. Nobody truly knows if a soul exists, or if it does, then how it's assigned to a body, or what happens when that body dies.

These are questions that mankind has asked itself many times in the past, and will continue to ask itself many times in the future, perhaps to never touch upon what a soul actually is.

They were a special case, however. Not because they _understood_, but because the situation that they found themselves in was unique.

The big ones had named them Ranma, the big ones had named them Akane. They thought that the big ones should really get their act together and settle on _one_ name. They were partial to 'the Best', though unsure if that technically classified as a name.

Either way, they continued on with their life, being called both Akane and Ranma by their four parents and their two elder sisters.

Then one of their fathers took them away on a training trip to become the Best, whilst they were allowed to remain with their sisters and mother and father, leaving their second mother alone.

Then, in the middle of training, of fighting for every last parcel of food in order to actually be fed, their mother died, leaving their second father as a heartbroken wreck of a man, and forcing their sisters to adopt new roles in their lives.

They didn't understand why they couldn't just call for their second mother so that she could comfort their second father, but before they could truly formulate that line of thought, they were exposed to the Nekoken.

Those who called them Akane worried themselves sick over when they fell ill and couldn't move and whimpered silently in their sleep, whilst the father who called them Ranma continued to toss them into the Pit.

They didn't remember much of the time before once they woke back up, but they knew that only the body that was called Ranma had been truly scarred by the cats, and that only that body's mind had been shattered in the Pit. The body that was called Akane was merely left with a blurry memory of being trapped and of _something else_ stealing away a part of them.

It'd been this that had finally convinced them that skills learned by one of themselves wasn't learned by both of them. That perhaps there was a reason that 'Akane' was never allowed in the kitchen, despite how talented 'Ranma' was as a rather decent chef.

Still, they continued on with their life. Going to school, rejecting Kuno, fighting with Ryoga on the way to school so that he wouldn't get lost, fighting with the 'morning brigade', watching their sister get ever more cutthroat in her business deals, winning the bread in their lunch-spars, watching their eldest sister abandon her dreams for the sake of their family, watching the handsome doctor falling over himself around their beautiful sister, swimming across the ocean to China, falling into a Spring, getting involved with the Amazons, and then being dragged all the way back to Japan.

And then they were introduced to themselves for the first time in their life, and told that they were going to be marrying themselves.

Obviously, their fathers demand was met with a mixture of disgust and amusement. But they didn't argue to change it, because they didn't want their fathers to try and marry them to either of their sisters. That would've been purely disgusting.

Unfortunately, they were still in need of an excuse to be able to avoid that marriage for as long as possible, so they tried to remember everything they knew, and came to the conclusion that 'Akane' could call 'Ranma' a pervert, and thereby smack 'him' across town whenever they needed to get themselves separated.

It was a perfect plan.

And so began the first stage of the Nerima Chaos that followed in the engagement's wake.

They liked Ucchan, a _lot_. They liked Doctor Tofu, at least a little bit. Ryoga was kind of cute, sometimes. They didn't like Shampoo much at all. And they hated the Kuno-family's guts.

Life continued, and they worked to become as strong as absolutely possible, all the while playing out their scheme to avoid marriage for as long as possible, still unsure about what kind of life they could imagine having.

If they married Ucchan, they'd end up being part of the restaurant, forced to remain reasonably stationary and possibly work as a waitress, surrounded all day by okonomiyaki.

It wasn't necessarily a pleasant image of the rest of their life, but they _liked_ Ucchan, so maybe that would make it okay? And since everyone treated them as different people, why wouldn't 'Akane' also be allowed to marry someone? But then who could they possibly pick that would not be scared off by Kuno or be too intimidated by 'Ranma' to make a move?

The answer was rather obviously to choose Ryoga, and to have his wild escapades across the globe to compensate for their boring life living together with their beloved Ucchan.

Unfortunately... they weren't entirely sure if that was a good idea, because the more Ryoga refused to admit his Curse to 'Akane', the more they worried that he was not the kind of boy that they should choose for themselves, no matter how cute he could be.

XXX

* * *

><p><p>

XXX

**Story**: [Invasion of the Mind]

**Summary**: Ranma has his mind attacked by a perfect version of himself.

**Genre**: Humor, Crack

XXX

Ranma stared at the shape in front of him for a long moment.

"What? Have you been rendered mute?" The man asked, sounding amused. "I suppose that such a reaction is to be expected when a mere imitation is faced with the true version of themselves."

Ranma continued to stare.

A brief flash of annoyance crossed the man's face, but his condescending smirk quickly reappeared. "I'd been hoping that I would at least be able to torture you a bit, before you succumbed to your inevitable defeat. But, I suppose that I overestimated you."

Just as the man was getting ready to attack him, in order to erase him forever, Ranma finally opened his mouth.

"If you're me, then where's your cat?" He asked curiously.

The man nearly stumbled, turning incredulous eyes at the martial artist. "My what?"

"Well, I mean... That one's mine." He absently pointed behind the man. "So where's yours?"

The man in question – still reeling somewhat from the original question – began turning to see what Ranma was pointing at, despite how it had to be some kind of distraction.

And found himself staring straight into a thousand sharp teeth. Teeth the size of swords. So many many endless teeth. With fur that was caked with mud and grit, and eyes that shone like the fires of hell. In comparison to that, he barely even noticed the impossibly countless amount of claws at the end of each of the _thing's_ legs, or the tail that cracked through the air like a whip with every lazy swing.

The thing was a monster. The thing was something only a complete madman could imagine.

It was a cat.

Obviously.

It was a cat, in the way that Ranma Saotome would always view cats. It was the perfect image of what Ranma believed that a cat should be. And of course he knew that he had a cat inside of him. He'd always known that, always known that that horrible creature lurked just outside of view, just waiting to break loose to wreck havoc on all things that were good and righteous in the world.

Unfortunately, Ranma Saotome's 'perfect self' could by his very definition never have been infected with the monstrous horrors that were the Nekoken. His 'perfect self' was purely Ranma, because to have him be infected by something as twisted as the Nekoken would've made him imperfect.

Which meant that the actual Ranma, who was only nearly as skilled as his 'perfect self', also just so happened to have a pet-monster on his side.

The man realized this in a brief instant, wondering wistfully what it might've been like to have been the 'perfect self' of some other sap than the crazy martial artist who'd endured this nightmarish taint on his mind.

As thousands of teeth – and impossibly countless claws – descended on him with a ruthlessness that could only be found in the heart of a creature with the blackest of souls imaginable, he imagined that it would've been a lot less painful.

Staring at the horrifyingly gory scene of slaughter and mayhem – a testament to the unforgiving and absolute evil of all cats – Ranma tried to shake the water out of his ear.

It was highly disturbing, sure. But the other guy was kind of a dick, and for some reason the cat didn't seem as scary now that it was fully exposed, rather than wearing one of those disgustingly cute disguises that seemed to fool everyone around them.

Making an annoyed face, Ranma resorted to hitting himself on the side of his head. Stupid curse, always getting his ears waterlogged.

XXX


	2. Cats and Cash

XXX

**Story**: [Cats and Cash]

**Summary**: Happosai dies, and his dying words might be a lot wiser than others would give him credit for. Because sometimes retreat is the only option.

**Genre**: Friendship, Adventure

XXX

Nabiki didn't dislike Ranma.

Oh, she might seem like she did, considering all the times she took advantage of him, or the way she easily classified him as a 'dumb jock'.

But he was a nice guy, when he wasn't an idiot about not being offensive, and he always tried his best. That kind of honesty was something of a rarity for Nabiki, self-proclaimed mercenary and well-known ice-queen, and so she found it refreshing to spend time around him.

Sure, he'd insult you, he'd mock you, and he'd glare at you. But he couldn't tell a lie to save his life. And in a business-oriented world, meeting someone that it was possible to read like an open book was a fascinating kind of bizarre that never seemed to get old.

Not that that was going to stop her from exploiting him to the fullest, regardless of his wishes. She was a mercenary after all, and she had bills to pay.

The uncomfortable thing was that sometimes it felt more like he was graciously allowing her to win, rather than her actually outmaneuvering him. In the beginning, she'd been convinced that it was only his silly notion of honor that was keeping him from competing in the first place, which meant that it didn't count as him 'letting' her win, as much as it counted as him being an idiot jock who couldn't take advantage of a situation through the means at his disposal.

Later, as she'd watched him grow – both in strength, and in actually acquiring a hint of how to act in a social situation that didn't revolve around punching people – Nabiki had come to realize that Ranma was an idiot, but that he most certainly wasn't _stupid_.

He was intelligent, in his own sneaky, slightly underhanded way. And even if he only really showed that side of himself when it came to scoring free ice-cream or attempting to get his hands on a cure for his curse, his proficiency at it had thrown Nabiki for a loop.

Until she'd realized that there was more to his determination to remain 'honorable' than merely pointlessly limiting himself.

He hated being indebted. _Hated_ it. And he was living underneath their roof, eating their food, and neither his father nor himself were paying for it.

Nabiki might keep quite a lot of the money she made off of Ranma to herself, keeping it safely tucked away from the family – and especially away from her father's drinking habits – but she did most certainly contribute to the family finances. To the point where without her they'd probably fall solidly into the red within a month. And Ranma knew that.

So Ranma allowed her to make money off of him, because he hated being indebted to them. So, despite their fathers claims that they were honored guests and didn't need to, he paid rent by bending to her whims.

She didn't dislike Ranma. In fact, she actually liked him quite a bit.

Not enough to even briefly consider dating him – though that had as much to do with his fiancees as it had to do with his inability to keep his feet out of his mouth – but enough that she would unquestionably trust him with her life.

The fact that he was good looking and sometimes – usually due to the regularly scheduled crazy hijinks of Nerima – wandered around the house in nothing but his underwear... well, a girl's allowed to enjoy a bit of a show, every now and then, right?

Still, she wasn't the most supportive of his and her sister's engagement. In large part because even if they seemed to love each other dearly, they both needed to grow up. He needed to learn to stop talking with his feet in his mouth – and to learn how to not insult people randomly as par for the course. And she needed to learn how to take a joke, without resorting to extreme physical violence at the drop of a hat.

They were good people, and she wouldn't mind seeing them together some day down the road, but it was just too soon. They were too inexperienced about dealing with people, and had gotten off to too much of a bad start. Because whilst they were both willing to forgive, neither of them forgot. And they'd learned too much from each other by trial and error, because by now all that they remembered the other person for was everything stupid that they'd ever said or done, and everything that they'd done in return themselves.

There was simply too much history of bad things happening between them, that even as they fell deeper in love, even as they learned more and more how to deal with others, even as they grew a bit wiser every day, they couldn't slip out of what had now become a habit. And the habit was to fight, to pull up their defenses and refuse to let the other one in.

They needed an absolute catastrophe to kick-start them into acting like they really wanted to act, and even if that happened, the Fiancee Brigade would just make everything tumble back to normal.

So, no. Nabiki didn't support Ranma and Akane's engagement. As far as the situation was concerned, there was no way that they could ever properly be together.

And it was all that stupid panda's fault.

Okay, so a lot of it was also the Amazons' stupid laws, and the Kuno siblings' delusions fault, but Nabiki wasn't sure if it was unfair or not to blame crazy people for ruining other peoples lives with their delusions. And if she kept those delusions contained by providing slightly scandalous pictures, then at least it kept that damnable ninja from entering their bathroom with a camera.

Ranma was good at detecting people, true. But he wasn't good enough to be especially reliable in such matters.

All in all, their relationship was a strange one, sneaky honor twisted around monetary obligation, and so when he asked her to listen without interrupting, she grabbed a seat.

Because the only reasons she could imagine that he wouldn't want her to interrupt him, would be to inform her of something that she might want to remain seated for. If for nothing else then because he would undoubtedly fumble around the subject for half an age, trying to find the right words.

She raised a perfectly cultured eyebrow at the tongue-tied martial artist. "Spit it out, Saotome."

Ranma visibly reined in the impulse to snap at her. Which made Nabiki suddenly feel a little bit colder. Because the idiot only kept himself from insulting people when things were _serious_.

"It's Happosai." He finally admitted.

A second – equally cultured – eyebrow joined the first one. "Oh?" Intrigued despite herself, in large part due to Nerima's residents having long since fallen into the habit of trying to pretend that the perverted old man didn't actually exist.

"He-..." Ranma made an aborted motion as if he wanted to strangle something, before sighing. "He's dying."

Nabiki blinked. She hadn't expected that. Sure, the man was positively ancient, but she couldn't imagine him actually... dying. She supposed that she'd always imagined that he'd have some insane secret technique that'd allow him to survive them all. "Really?" She wasn't even sure if she was gleefully excited about a life without the underwear-stealer, or if she was feeling guilty over all those times that she'd wished untold deaths on the old troll.

"Yeah." Ranma nodded. "It's confirmed. He'll be lucky to last through the month."

Nabiki frowned, still not sure of how she felt about it. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because-..." He frowned, looking torn. "Because I wanted to talk to someone who made sense."

Nabiki blinked again, slightly flummoxed to hear him say something so un-Ranma-like. "Why?"

Ranma clenched his eyes shut. "I hate his guts, but-..." His hands twitched.

And as she stared at the boy in front of her, Nabiki finally realized why he'd gone to her.

Their fathers would be partying, Akane would grin viciously, Kuno would rant, Kasumi would leave it at 'oh my', Ukyo and Shampoo would try to get into his pants, Cologne would try to get him into Shampoo's pants, and Ryoga wouldn't understand.

He needed to talk to someone 'normal'. Because he was going to miss the perverted old bastard, and he probably didn't entirely understand why.

"It won't be the same without him." Nabiki finished his sentence, surprising herself with how gentle her voice sounded.

Ranma blinked, turning towards her, his face open and hurt and miserable. "Yeah."

Nabiki shook her head wryly. She wasn't the kind of person who was good with comforting others, but she might be able to distract him a bit until he could figure out a way to deal with it on his own. Rising to her feet, she grabbed the martial artist by his arm and started to drag him out of her room. "Let's go find the old bastard a coffin, then he can complain that we're being cheap and fill it up with his damn panties."

Ranma snorted a laugh. "Sounds like a plan."

Because even if their relationship was strange, there was comfort there.

XXX

From the looks of things, Happosai's final breath would spark the beginning of a yearly celebration, a yearly _extremely festive_ celebration.

Nabiki didn't particularly mind, and even Ranma seemed unwilling to begrudge the civilians their desire to start a carnival over the perverted old troll's grave.

Still, from what she'd seen, the carnival would either become a very standard such, or it would devolve into some kind of demented anti-underwear-theft type of thing. And if the latter happen, then it was only a matter of time until the carnival was corrupted into young men chasing panties and young women giggling happily.

Should the latter happen, Nabiki was of the sincere belief that Happosai would be forever pleased with himself. And since she wasn't as dedicated to anti-perversion as her little sister, so maybe she was a little bit curious as to exactly what kind of crazy games might be developed for a carnival like that.

Nabiki paused. "Why are you so okay with the carnival-idea anyway, Saotome?"

There was a pause as the boy registered her words, before Ranma shrugged. "He's a shamelessly perverted bastard, but he's not the kind of person to begrudge someone happiness." He made a face. "Unless it's directly – and inversely – related to his enjoyment of perversion."

Humming thoughtfully at that, Nabiki grudgingly admitted the point. Happosai was shameless and proud of it. But, with the exception of his perverted behavior, he didn't exactly set out to make other people miserable.

And if he got others in trouble because he didn't want to take the blame for peeping or underwear-theft himself, well... he was a bastard, what did you honestly expect?

As far as Happosai's death was concerned, he had indeed complained that they were being unfairly cheap about his coffin – and had made mentions that he was taking that into consideration when writing his will, though, considering that the pervert's only possession was his collection of stolen panties, Nabiki found that she didn't particularly care.

Everyone else had reacted much as to be expected, with Akane whistling happily under her breath, their fathers toasting their good fortune, the Amazons trying to use it as an opportunity to convince Ranma to leave with them for China, the Kuno-family ranting about justice finally being served, and Ukyo making careful moves to position herself so that Ranma could cry on his shoulder if he needed to – whilst at the same time leaving him with a lovely view of her cleavage, purely by coincidence of course.

The only real surprise came from Hinako, who started crying when she first heard of it.

Admittedly, she was in her child form and as such had a tendency to overreact, but Happosai had still been the one who'd taught her the technique that had allowed her to live the life that she had.

Nabiki was counting the total number of mourners – or at least, those who wouldn't be celebrating – to be four.

Ranma, out of respect for an incredible martial artist that sometimes seemed larger than life. Hinako, at the loss of a nice old man who'd given her a cure to her illness when she was younger. Kasumi, for the passing of an elderly man who'd always tried to be polite to her. And Nabiki herself, for the solemn realization that with his passing, things were going to change, and whether for good or bad remained to be seen.

The semi-chaotic stalemate of the Nerima-ward was going to turn into a frenzy as everyone struggled for the upper hand. The foreboding of chaos was especially true because without Happosai, there weren't really anyone who could stand up to Cologne should she try and use brute force to stake their claim on Ranma.

Nabiki wasn't looking forward to it.

XXX

Ranma groaned. Of course, nothing could ever be simple, could it?

"You sold your soul to a demon?" Nabiki sounded just as exasperated with the old troll as Ranma felt.

"It was a good deal, at the time." Happosai coughed weakly, seeming a little indignant that the two youngsters didn't appear properly upset at the thought of him being trapped in eternal torment because of a decision he'd made in his foolish youth – even if he'd make it again in a heartbeat even now, those had been some amazing panties after all.

"You sold your soul for _panties_?" Ranma managed to sound an odd mixture of both horrified and frustrated to the point of near-violence.

"Don't speak as if you know!" Happosai exclaimed angrily at the uppity brat. "I'd never seen such exquisite perfection before, and I've never seen its like since, in all my years of searching!"

"So what, the demon just showed up with a pair of amazing panties and gave them to you in exchange for your soul?" Nabiki asked, slightly disbelieving.

Happosai made a displeased sound. "I might've examined the underwear of a few nearby priestesses." He admitted reluctantly.

Ranma sighed, he kind of didn't think that he could beat up a true after-life type of demon, and he didn't exactly feel happy to learn that the annoying old troll would be sentenced to eternal suffering because he was a pervert of the highest degree.

Then, for seemingly no reason, Nabiki demanded that Happosai explain intricately exactly how the transaction had happened. And when a written contract had been given to her, she'd started reading it with a fierce determination that he could honestly say that he couldn't actually remember seeing in the icy girl before.

Ranma tried to listen to the girl's mumbles, but his head started spinning long before he could make out what she was actually saying underneath all of those long and far too complicated words.

He might not be _stupid_, but he wasn't exactly _educated_ either.

Which is why he was caught completely by surprise when Nabiki greeted the creature stepping out of a fire – that smelled of brimstone – with a most devious smirk.

"It seems, that we have a disagreement on the exact terms of the old man's purchase." She began, her tone lofty.

The demon stared at her for a long moment, and then they were both talking, and Ranma buried his head in his hands because he was getting a headache from trying to figure out what the hell they were speaking of when they used things like 'clause nineteen b states', or 'according to paragraph sixty-seven', and had an argument bouncing between them so quickly that Ranma was worried that he might start seeing double.

Then the demon growled and glared, and made a motion as if to lunge for Nabiki's throat, so Ranma reacted with casual instinctiveness and blocked its advance with a foot carefully placed in front of its ankles, causing it – purely by coincidence and only slightly dependent on Ranma's inherent awesomeness – to tumble all the way back into the fire that it had originally stepped out of.

At which point Nabiki started laughing.

Ranma felt his jaw growing slack, because Nabiki didn't laugh. It would've ruined her image to laugh, so she didn't. Except now she was laughing, which didn't make any sense at all.

"He can't take you, Happosai." She finally got out, smirking evilly. "The contract has been rendered null and void." And then she glanced over at Ranma, and her smirk turned into something bearing a disturbingly close resemblance to one of Akane's honest smiles. "And thanks for the save, Saotome."

Far too off-guard to properly respond to the girl's thanks, Ranma could only nod dumbly, before the two of them once more settled down in their chairs to wish the old man safe travels to the after life.

"Ah, if only Ranma-chan would give an old man a final hug." Happosai tried.

"Not gonna happen, you old letch." Ranma gritted out through his teeth.

"Che." Happosai clucked his tongue at being denied his cleavage so adamantly.

The two youngsters sat quietly for a moment longer by the old man's bedside, before he spoke again.

"The only chains that should hold you down, are the ones that are put there by your own two hands." Happosai turned tired eyes to the young martial artist. "Broken honor can be redeemed, not by fulfillment, but by forgiveness. And love doesn't always overcome the odds." His eyes slid over to the young woman. "And when the world is at your feet, you'll have to dig through the mud with your own pristine hands if you ever hope to find something to _do_ with it."

He coughed, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself, before facing them with utmost seriousness.

"The paths that you both walk, are good paths. But are they the right ones for _you_?" He left them with that final question, before his eyes slipped closed and his breathing ceased.

Leaving the two people not quite out of their teens alone in the room.

XXX

"So, how did you manage to save him anyway?" Ranma finally asked.

Nabiki looked up from her notes. "Ah, well. To summarize, there was a clause that canceled the contract if 'an honest innocent cried for him, a victim knowingly defended him, and an enemy purposefully wished him well'. So, in order: Hinako, me, and you."

Ranma frowned. "That sounds like a pretty stupid clause to have in there." He pointed out.

Nabiki nodded. "It is. My guess is that they have some kind of deal with the more benevolent side of things, and that they're big on the whole 'redemption'-shtick. So, they have to have some kind of cancellation clause, and therefore demand that the proof of redemption is as complicated as they can possibly make it."

Ranma's frown had turned slightly pained. "I think some of that went over my head. But I get the gist of it." He admitted reluctantly.

Nabiki nodded, returning to her notes.

She didn't want to think of the old man's final words. She didn't want to think about the way he had so honestly pointed out that material gain could only get you so far.

She liked making money, she liked being successful, she liked owning things, and she'd always seen non-material things as something that ought to be secondary objectives.

Except... the way that Happosai had phrased it sent chills down her spine.

Part of the reason she liked dealing with Ranma was because he was always honest about things. That it was always possible to read him.

And, how often would she encounter that honesty when she was at the top of the world? How easy would it be to find something worth keeping close?

Money might save a lot of problems, and enough of it could give a freedom that was awe-inspiring, but it also had a tendency to create new problems. Or at least enhance already existing ones.

Who could you trust? Who wanted to talk to you for monetary gain? Who would betray you at the drop of a hat? Who would seek you out and for what reason?

Gold-diggers flocked to a gold mine. That was nature.

She'd never been particularly bothered by the idea previously. She'd known what she was getting herself into, and she'd been more than happy with it. But she didn't want to shift through mud in order to find gems. She wanted to have _something_ already there with her. She wasn't exactly sure what that was, and considering her family members and their often-insane behavior, she didn't feel particularly safe at the thought of them being the only immaterial thing in her possession.

She loved her father, but he was a layabout who'd grab her money for himself in a heartbeat. She loved her little sister, but she'd condemn her as a disgusting pervert if Nabiki had problems finding a boyfriend that lasted. She loved her older sister, but her ever-present tranquility had opened a gap between them that she doubted would ever be filled.

Nabiki didn't have friends, and her family wasn't the kind of thing that she'd be happy with clinging to for the rest of her life. So what exactly did that leave for her, but an existence of sorting through lies upon lies upon lies?

That wasn't something she wanted to dedicate her life to.

Except, she didn't like the idea of suddenly relinquishing her successes, of giving up when she'd already come this far. She wanted something, not quite what she'd aimed for originally, but she wasn't going to just roll over and be nice to people. She wasn't that kind of girl.

Ruthlessly crushing the uncertainties, Nabiki turned from her introspection to consider the boy next to her. The boy who'd been unusually quiet since the Grand Master of Anything Goes had finally passed on.

"So... what exactly did he tell you, Saotome?" She asked.

Ranma startled from where he was sitting quietly. "Wha-?"

"Happosai's final words. I don't speak fluent martial arts, what did he tell you?" She elaborated.

Ranma stared at her for a moment, before shrugging. "He told me to run."

Nabiki's world suddenly felt like it was tilting sideways. "What?"

"I've been trying to figure out how I can avoid hurting anyone's honor, but I've been coming up blank, because no matter what I do there's just no solution. And so he told me to run and let them solve it themselves until I could be forgiven, some day down the road. Like removing a bullet to let the wound heal." He sighed. "And the only real argument against that would've been Akane, except... I don't know if-... if we're ever going to be able to make it work..."

Nabiki nearly reeled back, because Ranma's face at that statement was so... heartbroken.

Ranma returned to his silence, and Nabiki was left trying to digest this new information.

"If you run, I'm coming with you." She finally stated with conviction. "Because otherwise, I'm going to be forced to track you down, and there's no way that you could be subtle enough that I wouldn't be able to find you."

Ranma's head swiveled around to stare at her. "I ain't eloping-!" He started out, looking quite upset at the thought.

"Oh shut up, Saotome. I'm not looking to marry you. But I think I need to get out of here earlier than my business sense would've indicated, and I understand what you mean, so I'd like to support that idea. Unfortunately, I could easily be forced into tracking you down by your fiancees, and so the whole damn thing would happen all over again, just with more people being on guard for your inevitable escape attempts." Nabiki explained herself.

Ranma stared at her for a long moment. "So, what exactly did he tell you? 'Cause I don't speak lawyer-talk."

Nabiki threw a brief glare at him, but relented. It was only fair after all. "He told me that I need to find something more than what I have, before I can be happy on top of the world. And that it isn't anything business-related."

There was a moment of silence as Ranma thought this over, before he nodded.

"So, when do we leave?"

XXX

Leaving Nerima was both harder and easier than expected.

Easier, because Nabiki was quite proficient in covering tracks, and had already had an emergency-kit ready for if she should ever need to suddenly flee for one reason or the other – either a result of crazy Nerima stunts, or because she'd accidentally provoked someone that she really shouldn't have.

Harder, because they'd stumbled upon the way that Shampoo had been tracking Ranma down all the time, and the only way to neutralize that was a joined effort that took both planning and training to pull off.

However, when all was said and done. All that was really needed to slip out was for Ranma to provoke Akane into hitting him in the direction of a substation. After that, he would take a few trains in order to throw off his trail, before joining up with Nabiki – who'd carefully constructed a very sensible reason to keep her associates watching _other_ things than public transportation for the coming week – and then blending in with the crowd of the train.

Obviously, Ranma's distinctive red silks and pigtail had to go, meaning that Ranma was dressed up as a girl in a very sensible and common-place – and most assuredly feminine – outfit. Considering how his female outfits normally consisted of things that quite a few women wouldn't be caught dead in, this level of anonymity was an added boon.

Nabiki herself was – after a quick stop to change her clothes on her way to meet up with Ranma – wearing an extremely innocent sundress, seeing since nobody would consider the ice-queen of Furinkan capable of looking 'innocent'.

After that, they were left with an expected – but nonetheless quite deliberating – complication.

They were barely old enough to have finished school, and other than Ranma's ability to beat people up – which could be useful if anyone was willing to pay for security – and Nabiki's unofficial business-skills – it wasn't as if she'd actually graduated from anywhere, or could prove that she'd done so with any documents that weren't at least partly forged, since that would blow their cover – they didn't exactly have any skills worth marketing.

Ranma was of course _sublime_ at beating people up, and Nabiki had danced contract-speak with a demon and come out on top. But outside of Nerima, if they tried telling anyone that, they'd just get sent to the loony-bin.

Which was how they'd ended up taking odd jobs that were quite frankly not entirely within legal limits.

Oh, they didn't go around ruining people's lives – Ranma still stuck to his code of honor as much as he possibly could – but if they might've dodged paying a few taxes or fees... well, they were technically runaways already, and that was kind of illegal too.

Nabiki worked part-time as a waitress, but was using her spare time to write up contracts that some people wanted to be... secretive, about. Sometimes the contracts were on the iffy side of gray-zone, but mostly they weren't worse than dodging taxes through the inventive usage of loopholes.

Ranma made sure that nobody who came to her for contracts tried to leave with anything else, but also provided a steady income with his grunt work on building sites or anyplace else that needed an extra set of hands.

However, considering that not all of the people hiring him were entirely reputable, even if his own work followed easily within legality – with the exception of being underage and not actually educated enough to technically work at some of those places – the means his employers used to pay him with oftentimes weren't.

They weren't raking in money, but they were able to save some up for a rainy day.

So when Ranma got into a fight with a wild dog at a condemned building, because – even if they were wile things of absolute evil – the obviously weakened cat it'd been trying to eat didn't deserve to be eaten, and the cat turned out to be some sort of ghost-demon-cat that regally declared him as a Friend of Cats...

Well, they'd kind of needed to get out pretty quickly after Ranma had fallen briefly into the Nekoken, since they weren't entirely sure that someone from Nerima wouldn't be hear of it and come running.

On the positive side, by the time Ranma had next encountered a cat, he'd found himself to have been cured of his phobia.

This was extra positive on behalf of the very simple fact that Ranma was now attracting as much felines as he attracted water. And that they were all very friendly with him.

Nabiki deliberately decided to ignore the fact that Ranma was apparently capable of holding entirely sensible dialogues with the cats, because – magic existing or not – there were some things she just didn't want to admit to being reality.

Thankfully, his newly acquired ease with cats, sent them tumbling down through a short and relatively non-violent adventure that landed them with a small but comfortable house not far from where Nabiki had finally been admitted to law school.

It was nice to live in a proper house again, but the really good thing about it being a house, was the lack of complaints from landowners or neighbors whenever half-a-dozen cats decided to visit them in order to gossip with Ranma over breakfast.

It was hard to pretend that she was just hallucinating him talking to cats when Ranma kept her informed through those cats of various interesting events that were happening in the neighborhood. And though most of it was related to fish, cat-food, and where and when people were leaving out saucers of milk, there were some rather interesting anecdotes included in them.

Still, as Ranma happily continued his grunt work – because working as a waiter/waitress was apparently something he'd had quite enough of back in Nerima – and Nabiki went off to school to study and learn and hopefully graduate quickly so that she could take the business-world with storm, their life settled into a – slightly bizarre – routine.

Ranma woke up first, practiced a bit of martial arts, greeted whatever cat-guests were present that morning, made breakfast, coaxed Nabiki out of bed with something edible, they ate breakfast together with some visiting cats, and then they separated for the day to work on whatever they were working on that day. Upon returning home, whoever had had the more exhausting day got to slack off until the other one finished dinner, then Ranma practiced his martial arts, and Nabiki went over any assignments she still had left from school.

They'd both been grateful that they had different rooms, and reasonably thick walls. Not only because it'd been highly awkward that first week away from Nerima when they'd ended up in bunk beds, but also because neither of them were entirely comfortable with the idea of growing too close to each other.

Nabiki didn't like considering Ranma as being 'single', in no small part because she knew damn well what the Fiancee Brigade would have to say about that, but also because he was _Akane's_, and – beyond appreciating a bit of eye-candy – the idea of thinking of him like that felt... wrong. Horribly wrong. As if she'd desecrated their mother's grave, kind of wrong.

She guessed that Ranma felt somewhat similar, because he _had_ loved Akane. In fact, he was probably _still_ in love with Akane. He just knew that they'd probably end up killing each other within the first month of actual marriage, and wasn't willing to believe that 'love conquers all' when his own experience with love was 'love makes a huge goddamn mess'.

A relationship broken, not because of a lack of feelings, but because the two people in it couldn't be honest, and weren't allowed the time that they needed to get out of the habit of fighting.

So they were both very happy to follow the procedures that were normal for their current identities. Namely, to act as if they were siblings. They might not be entirely comfortable with it – because neither of them were entirely sure how siblings of different genders were supposed to interact – and their cover-story indeed stated that they weren't blood-related, in an effort to stave off questions about them not looking similar enough, but in the end it was the most suitable cover that they could think of.

Neither of them had been looking forward to the idea of faking marriage or an engagement in order to explain their living arrangements without being classified as disreputable. So, when one of the cats that had followed Ranma around had mentioned that Nabiki would've become Ranma's step-sister if his engagement with Akane had actually worked out, they'd both leaped at the opportunity to portray themselves more like that.

The world continued onwards, there weren't any word about what was happening in Nerima – though, considering the Kuno's family inclination towards keeping what happened there away from the public eye, that probably wouldn't change until the whole place was reduced to a giant smoking crater – and they were both... well, at least reasonably happy.

Ranma was after all still reeling from the realization that the girl he loved wasn't someone whom he was going to be marrying, despite a year-long engagement. And Nabiki was still looking over her shoulder to see if one of his fiancees would suddenly spring out of the shadows and skewer her for 'stealing away their Ranma'.

Considering some of the things that she'd seen since he'd first showed up on their doorstep, it wasn't an entirely irrational fear.

XXX

The beginning of a change to what had become the norm for the two runaways, started with one of Ranma's regular feline visitors complaining about a stomachache.

Turns out, Ranma could easily translate human shiatsu points to those of a cat's. Which in turn led into one suddenly-cured cat, who was more than happy with it.

From this humble origin, sprang the beginnings of a clinic-that-wasn't. In other words, rumors from the cured cat reached the ears of other cats with similar problems, who dropped by for the easy cure. This surge in cured cats escalated the rumors, and suddenly their home had turned from cat-meeting place, to cat-Mecca.

Of course, it didn't take too long before even their rather casual neighbors started to notice the influx of cats in the area, and then _those_ rumors reached the owners of said cats, at which point they began to heartily thank the young man who'd finally managed to cure whatever ails their precious pets had been suffering from.

In other words, they began tossing money at him.

Now, Nabiki was more than happy to push Ranma into actually becoming a full-time veterinarian – in no small part due to the money, but also because he always seemed happy to actually be able to _help_ people, which would be rare for him to experience if he kept on doing nothing except grunt work – but getting into the business was a bit more complicated than simply putting up a sign and paying taxes.

First of all, Ranma needed a permit to practice medicine in relation with animals; secondly, he needed the proper education in order to have his permit-request actually be taken seriously; and thirdly, he needed to actually be able to work with animals rather than simply discuss the whole curing-process with the cats.

It wasn't like he knew how to speak _animal_ after all. Only cat.

All of this meant that in order to become a veterinarian Ranma would need to go back to school. First to improve his grades enough that he'd be accepted into some form of med-school at all, and then to get the required education necessary for the work.

Three months later, Nabiki found herself reconsidering the way that she'd once upon a time abandoned martial arts. Because that's how long it took Ranma to perfect and use his – newly invented – 'martial art school of cramming'.

He was still an idiot, yeah. But the guy was _talented_ at learning things, if he had the correct motivation.

Which in this case had been the opportunity to develop a 'veterinarian school of martial arts'.

Nerima or not, there was no getting around the fact that Ranma was still fantastically determined to be the Best.

XXX

Ami suppressed the urge to sigh at her friend's antics. "I'm sure that Luna isn't dying, Usagi-chan." She tried to reassure the panicking blonde.

A horrible groan of untold misery emerged from the cat in question. "That's what _you_ think..." The royal advisor muttered darkly.

Mamoru – who'd rushed to the scene of his girlfriend's panic-attack – looked as if he was briefly debating whether or not to throw the cat out through a window, but finally simply shook his head. "I'd probably agree with Ami here, but since you're worried, we could take her to a vet." He suggested, trying to appease his future wife.

"But Luna is an alien, right? Technically anyway? I mean, is she biologically close enough to a cat that a vet wouldn't be able to figure that out?" Ami worried.

And that was actually a very good question. Because whilst they might not get exposed as part of the Silver Millennium on behalf of Luna having a weird moon-shaped patch of fur, it _was_ fully possible that cats and... whatever-the-hell-Artemis-and-Luna-were, would be different on a more fundamental level than intelligence.

"But we can't just let her die!" Usagi wailed.

Mamoru paused, trying to think of any alternative, before stumbling onto a memory.

"I-... uh, I know a guy who was studying to be a vet. We shared a few classes." And he was also the reason why Mamoru had managed to make it so far into his studies despite the madness that being Tuxedo Kamen had made of his life – those study-techniques of his were _amazing_. "I probably owe _him_ more favors than the opposite, but he dislikes the media too much to go on the news about any weirdness about Luna." He admitted.

"Is he competent?" Ami asked, knowing that there was a big difference between studying to be something and actually becoming it.

Mamoru shrugged. "He's a bit... 'uncivilized', I guess. But he got solid grades, and from what I hear, he's good at what he does."

Of course, most of what he'd heard had been from how the guy's sister – whom he'd run into a few times since the guy had graduated – had sometimes mentioned it. That and a few weird off-hand comments about him helping out breakfast-visiting cats, back when they were still studying together. Mamoru had never really figured that last part out.

"Then let's go!" Usagi declared passionately, hurrying to get ready to move Luna's chosen 'deathbed' to wherever it was that they needed to go.

Mamoru just sent a silent prayer that the odd pair of siblings hadn't moved, and that his and Usagi's age-difference wouldn't be commented on. Or at least, not to the point where anyone would be calling her parents about their relationship.

He might love her with all of his heart, but he _really_ didn't want to deal with whatever her parents might have to say about the two of them dating.

XXX

Nabiki smiled toothily at the man. "Have you ever heard the expression 'cradle-robber', Mamo-chan?"

Mamoru winced instinctively, both at the words, and at the expression. There was just something about Nabiki that put him on edge. A kind of dangerously calculating glint in her eye that never ceased to unnerve him. Especially when either money, law, or contracts came into play.

Considering that there _were_ laws about 'cradle-robbing', Mamoru would've been more than happy to not be seen as dating Usagi whilst in the woman's presence.

However, life was life, and even the most elaborate schemes would've most likely simply crumbled away through an unholy combination of bad luck and Nabiki's disturbingly accurate intuition.

Shaking his head to dismiss the distracting thoughts, Mamoru sighed. "I've heard it lots of times. It doesn't really change anything though."

Nabiki raised an inquisitive eyebrow as the younger girls made gooey-eyes at Ranma where he was asking Usagi questions about her cat. "No? How bold of you, Mamo-chan."

Mamoru nodded, suppressing the urge to smirk as he prepared to deflect the woman's insinuations. "I'm still wondering what type of ring would suit her best." He admitted honestly, because that had been bothering him for _ages_ now.

Nabiki blinked stupidly for a brief moment, shooting a weighing glance towards the blonde, before something in her expression softened.

"Marriage, huh..." She mumbled, sounding nostalgic and sad. Then she turned back towards Mamoru, staring into his eyes for a long moment, before smiling.

Her smile was completely different from the ones that she usually wore. It was a smile that might've suited Usagi-... no, _Serenity_ better than the woman he'd sometimes believed to be part-shark. It was sad, bittersweet, happy, and mindbogglingly _honest_.

"Then I wish you luck, Mamo-chan." The smile slipped away for a snort of laughter. "You're probably going to need it."

And didn't that just sound horrifyingly ominous?

XXX

Ranma stared at the cat for a long moment, before finally giving up with a sigh. "That's just weird." He commented absently to himself, before stepping back out to meet the cat's owners.

"Is Luna going to be alright?" The blonde asked, nearly bowling him over the moment he stepped through the door.

"Uhh... yeah, she was just suffering from gas." He told the worried girl, before frowning slightly. "But I think she might be-... uhh... how to put this..." He scratched his head thoughtfully, before finally shrugging and being blunt about it. "I think your cat might be retarded."

Over the sound of the blonde girl starting to bawl her eyes out over how awful it was that her cat might be lacking in higher brain-functions, he could see Nabiki smacking her head against the desk, looking like she wasn't sure whether to laugh hysterically, or throw something at him.

It was apparently a reoccurring urge for the young woman.

"Who the hell are you calling retarded, bastard!?" A new voice roared at him.

Ranma frowned as he turned towards the cat, not noticing the sudden deathly silence in the clinic. "Oh, so _now_ you talk. Geez, you had me worried there. Don't think I could cure brain-damage, and Nabiki would be pissed at my record of 'perfect cures' being stained." He made a face at the thought of just how annoyed his sister would've been about it, and was nearly forced to suppress a shudder. "Man, that would've been awful."

"Uhh... Ranma. The cat. Talked." Nabiki choked out haltingly from where she was staring at them with wide eyes.

Ranma looked at her funny, not really sure what she was on about this time. "Of course it talked. That's what cats _do_." He looked back at the cat. "Normally, getting them to shut up is the problem. Keeps nagging on and on about crap all the time. But this one just kept making weird wheezing noises, so I was worried for a bit."

Nabiki's jaw seemed to drop slightly, before she clenched her eyes shut in what he'd long since learned was a way to try and force a headache back. "Ranma. Did the noises sound like 'meow'?"

Ranma considered that for a moment, before nodding. "It was kind of weird. Don't think I've heard a cat say that before."

Nabiki made a noise that sounded remarkably akin to an angry growl. "Ranma, cats _all_ say 'meow'. It is in fact, the _only_ thing cats say."

Ranma stared at her for a moment, wondering if she'd hit her head at some point. "What? That's stupid. I mean, they gossip a lot, and after a while you can sort of tune them out into a kind of 'blah blah blah'-thing, but where the hell are you getting 'meow' from?"

"Dammit Ranma! 'Meow' is what cats say! It's a thing! It's a well-known phenomena! It doesn't _matter_ what you think about it! Cats! Don't! Speak!" Nabiki yelled at him, before stopping to catch her breath.

There was a moment of silence, until suddenly a light dawned in Ranma's mind. "Oh. Right, the cat-thing isn't normal. I forgot about that." He rubbed his neck sheepishly, before turning back to the stunned visitors. "Uhh, could you guys, y'know, forget about this?"

"Are you an absolute _moron_!?" Nabiki exploded again, nearly making Ranma jump. "I said that I _understood_ the cat! The cat is weird!"

This explosion might've sounded extremely uncharacteristic, coming from a girl who'd dealt with a great number of supernatural and impossible things over the course of her life, but then it should be remembered that she'd actually lived a fairly normal life ever since way back when Ranma had begun studying again.

Basically, she would've been able to take this whole thing in stride easily, except she was kind of out of practice.

That, and well... sometimes you needed to yell at Ranma in order for him to grasp such incomprehensible things as 'common sense' and the like.

"Huh..." Ranma frowned to himself for a moment, before turning to the cat. "Jusenkyo?" There was no reaction. "Did a favor for a kami?" Again, no reaction. "Magical, alien cat from a long-dead empire?" The cat flinched. "Huh, weird." He shook his head, before turning to Mamoru. "You engaged to any princesses Mamoru?" That got another flinch, this time from everyone present.

Nabiki stared in disbelief at the lot of them for a moment. Before beginning to smack her head against the desk again. "Dammit, why does this kind of crap keep stalking us?"

"At least we don't have to worry about getting bored." Ranma pointed out to his sister with a careless shrug.

She shot him a glare of unspeakable horrors to come. "I hate you." She told the idiot veterinarian.

Ranma just grinned unrepentantly at her, cheerfully aware that she didn't really mean it.

"Wait, how come you guys are taking this so... easily?" Mamoru finally asked, trying to understand the siblings' reaction.

Luna seemed on the verge of declaring them enemies or youma-sympathizers, but was thankfully accidentally kept out of the discussion when Usagi hugged her a bit too tight and ended up choking her.

Nabiki shrugged resignedly, sighing. "I grew up in Nerima."

Ami tilted her head, frowning in confusion. "That still doesn't explain-..." She started.

"The principal of Furinkan High, threw pineapple bombs after us, dressed up the teachers in animal costumes, and repeatedly came up with elaborate schemes on how to shave off everyone's hair." Nabiki clarified in deadpan.

Ranma made an annoyed noise as everyone turned to stare at them, seemingly temporarily lost in memories. "You'd think the bastard would get the hint after the first time someone punts him through the ceiling." He muttered to himself.

Nabiki smirked. "He landed on his head, otouto. You should've aimed for something more vital. It's not like the Kuno-family actually have brain-cells, after all."

"Point." Ranma admitted with a groan.

"Wait, are you guys telling me that the rumors about the 'Nerima Wrecking Crew' were _real_?" Mamoru finally choked out, staring at the two siblings in disbelief.

Ranma stared at him for a long moment, before turning narrowed eyes to his sister. "_Onee-chan_, where does that name come from?"

Nabiki tellingly refused to meet anyone's eyes, opting instead to stare out the window. "My, the weather's really clearing up, I should get some laundry done." She decided, starting to move towards the door.

"I already did the laundry, onee-chan." Ranma said with a smile that looked awfully predatory.

Nabiki flinched. "Eh? Really?" She fidgeted slightly. "Well, I think I've still got some accounting to do-..." She started moving again.

"But wouldn't that be _terribly_ rude to our visiting friends, _onee-chan_?" Ranma continued to smile, showcasing a disturbingly large amount of unreasonably sharp teeth.

"Okay! I coined the phrase! You guys kept destroying goddamn everything! You blew through walls, you destroyed tables, you launched tornadoes! What the hell did you _think_ we called you idiots?!" Nabiki yelled, but she looked like she was just about ready to bolt through the door and spend the night at a friend's house.

Ranma stared at her for a moment, looking torn between yelling back at her, and being embarrassed. Then he started to snicker helplessly.

After a long moment which Nabiki spent glaring at her younger brother, Ranma finally seemed to collect himself.

"It was pretty amazing." He mused, sounding longingly nostalgic.

Nabiki's glare softened, as she seemed to abandon her earlier escape attempts. "Everything always seems nicer when you look back on it." She murmured with a sigh.

Mamoru stared at the two people in front of him, until things started to click.

"You're... You're Ranma Saotome, aren't you?" He stared, jaw agape, at the easygoing young man who'd taught him how to study.

Ranma winced, making a slightly uncomfortable face. "'Were'." He corrected. "Once upon a time, that was my name, yeah. But a lot has happened since then."

"Umm... Excuse me, but what are you three talking about?" Ami finally interjected, her curiosity overriding the urge to not impose on their conversation.

The three older inhabitants of the room shared glances, before Mamoru turned back to the other girls.

"A few-... " He paused, frowning slightly. "Quite a few years ago, actually. There were some rumors about Nerima, kind of like the ones Juuban have nowadays. Except, they were about some martial artists endlessly picking fights with each other. The building companies could barely keep up with the demand, and the insurance companies nearly went bankrupt." Here he paused, shooting a glance towards his former classmate. "In the center of it all, was a guy called Ranma Saotome. Apparently he'd somehow ended up engaged to half-a-dozen girls, all of them martial artists, and there were guys chasing after them who wanted to beat him bloody for it. The rumors that came out from that place were... 'odd' to say the least."

"Like people throwing tornadoes around?" Nabiki hedged, snorting with annoyance. "'Cause that one happened."

"Like the 'Ice Queen' who blackmailed everyone? 'Cause she's still kinda frigid." Ranma rebutted, jerking a thumb towards her.

Mamoru felt his face drain of color, because he _had_ heard some rumors about a girl somehow manipulating the whole lot of them, and his current predicament age-wise in relation to his future wife left him... well, rather more vulnerable to blackmail than he was entirely comfortable with.

"Wait, how do you 'throw' a tornado?" Usagi asked curiously.

Ranma shrugged. "Martial arts technique. Not gonna say more than that, 'cause the Amazon's are touchy about their techniques, and I don't wanna deal with them ever again."

"Huh?" Usagi didn't seem to get it.

"They gave up their active search for us a few years back, but if he starts teaching their techniques, they'll come after him in force." Nabiki explained. "And when I say 'force' I mean that he'll either be dragged kicking and screaming to China were he'll get married and give them lots of kids, or they'll cut their losses and kill him on the spot."

Usagi's face turned a horrified pale.

"One elder wouldn't be enough to capture me for sure, and I doubt they could spare more than one, so it'd probably be death." Ranma corrected her absently, before making a thoughtful sound. "Which isn't actually as bad as it sounds, 'cause I _really_ don't want to go back to China."

"You'd think a guy would appreciate the opportunity to have lots of kids." The cat said, its eyes disturbingly calculating.

Ranma turned back to his patient with a slightly disgusted face. "I ain't ready to be a dad, and even if I was, I sure as hell ain't gonna spend my life as a slave, all the while watching my kids be taught that slavery, murder, and mind-control are all just another way to get what you want in life."

Nabiki watched with slight vindictiveness how the faces of all of their guests paled at that.

In the beginning, she'd never really considered what it'd be like for Ranma to have gone with Shampoo. She'd imagined that it would include a lot of sex, a lot of martial arts, and a lot of kids. All of those things would've been something she could see him finding attractive about an adult life, which was why she'd considered the Amazon to be just as close a contender for his heart as Ukyo had been.

It wasn't until years later that he'd finally managed to put what the Amazon wanted from him into words that she would understand. And it had made it all the more obvious that Shampoo was a dangerous contender for his hand in marriage, not because of his feelings, but because of the ruthless machinations of the Amazons.

They'd wanted a warrior, not a martial-artist. They'd wanted a breeding stud, not a parent. They'd wanted only the tool that Ranma could've been with his skills and his genetics, never the dedicated honor or the socially awkward kindness. They'd wanted Ranma's body, but they had less than any interest at all in who he was as a person.

She'd tried cornering him about the rest of his fiancees, and had received the more or less expected fumbling 'best friend'-speech about his feelings for Ukyo, and the 'creepy stalker chick'-admission with regards to Kodachi.

She never asked about Akane.

From the way his eyes would snap to short dark hair in a crowd, to how he could mumble about 'uncute tomboys' in his sleep, to the absolute failures that'd happened whenever she'd sent him out on a date in order to 'get on with his life'. She'd never had to ask.

He still loved her with all of his heart. He honestly couldn't seem to _stop_ loving her with all of his heart.

It made Nabiki a bit envious of her little sister, that she'd been able to capture a man's heart so thoroughly. It also saddened her, because she wasn't sure how her sister had taken their escape, and she could only guess that if they ever met again it wouldn't be so much a happy reunion as it would be closure and heartache.

Thankfully, she'd reached the point in her sibling-relationship with Ranma that she no longer considered him 'eye candy', which had seriously helped settle her nerves about Amazons jumping out of the shadows for 'stealing away husbands'.

Mamoru frowned, as a thought seemed to occur to him. "Is that why you two ran away?" He guessed.

Nabiki winced, as Ranma bristled at the implication of him 'running away'.

"Partly." She interrupted Ranma before he could even open his mouth to refute that he would run away from anything. "The Amazons were part of... an escalation-type of problem."

Ranma looked away, but didn't try to stop her from explaining it, so that was a win. Her brother had a bit of a temper.

Nabiki suppressed the urge to smirk, because as unholy as the two betrothed's tempers were, she herself would've become an aunt and would as such have been able to simply sit back and watch the two of them tear their hair out over their kids' mood-swings.

Then the need to suppress said smirk vanished like morning mists, because she would probably never be allowed to see the two of them happily married. In fact, she would probably never see her younger sister ever again. And that hurt.

Her mood having sobered rather unpleasantly, Nabiki turned back to her explanation.

"The Amazons were a clan of warriors, the Kuno-family were rich enough to hire an army of mercenaries on a whim, and considering the kind of people who kept popping up out of the woodwork, it was really only a matter of time until someone threw the first punch." Nabiki watched as most of the ones gathered appeared confused by this. "Look, the Wrecking Crew could probably handle anything you threw at it, but there were people involved in that mess who _couldn't defend themselves_. And if any of those crazies ever decided to start lobbing bombs around the globe for whatever reason, they could've easily kick-started an actual war."

Again, the trio of humans paled, though this time even their definitely-not-talking cat managed to look worried.

There, that should at least help keep Ranma out of the discussion of why they left.

It was one thing to end up in trouble time and time again, but it was an entirely different matter to realize that you're the focal point of what could far too easily turn horrifically violent. Especially for someone like Ranma, who'd at least had a few run-ins with war-veterans, and who'd been rightfully horrified at the thought of losing the first place he'd ever called 'home' in a column of fire and death.

Yeah, both of them had had more than one reason for leaving, but whilst Nabiki was almost entirely selfish, some of Ranma's were indisputably noble.

And he was still sore about the thought of leaving Akane behind to that madness. Though Nabiki had long since grown better at ignoring the times that he bolted awake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, with her name on his lips, and a mixture of horror and longing in his eyes.

Why, she barely noticed it happening more than twice a week, nowadays.

XXX

**A/n: I'm not sure how I feel about this fic, I didn't mind writing it, but the way that they ran away in the beginning kind of bothers me a bit, and then the entire fic is built around that so... yeah.**

**Also, I don't dislike Shampoo, and think it's fully possible that she and Ranma might end up in a loving relationship, but the Amazons have a whole slew of traditions that would rub Ranma the wrong way, Big Time, and I don't think he'd ever seriously consider marrying her as long as she remains "attached" to that village.**


	3. Out of the Pit, Into the Wild

XXX

**Story**: [Out of the Pit, Into the Wild]

**Summary**: Ranma fails to learn the cat-fist, Genma believes him dead, and Ranma is left alone on the road at the tender age of six.

**Genre**: Drama

XXX

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

He'd begged, he'd pleaded, he'd shouted, he'd yelled, he'd screamed, he'd cried, and he'd raged.

He'd done everything he could think of, said things that he'd never believed would pass his lips. Everything, just to convince his father to get him out. To get him away from the cats.

In the beginning, his father had shouted back at him that it was for his own good. But that had been days ago.

Ranma had been down here for days.

The stench of fish-entrails that had worked the cats into a frenzy, had all but disappeared. The cats knew that there was nothing fish-like left to eat. But they were hungry, starving. And he had a lot more meat on him than any of the other cats did.

In the beginning, they'd just wanted the fish. Their hunger had driven them to the point where they hadn't been able to recognize what was fish-entrails and what was Ranma, and he'd been bound too tightly in ropes to fight back as their feast drew blood.

Now though... now there was no longer any fish left. But they knew what his blood tasted like, and they were still starving. So now they were trying to devour Ranma himself.

That was bad enough, struggling to keep awake and away from their sharp claws and needle-like teeth, whilst still bound so tightly that all he could do was writhe. But it was worse than that.

Because he'd been down here for _days_, and it was hard to see what was real and what was just lack of sleep, and he was so desperately, horrifyingly _hungry_.

He'd gone without food for long stretches of time. His father had never been very good at planning things out, and sometimes they'd almost starve because they couldn't find anything to hunt, or because they didn't have the money to pay the shopkeepers. So Ranma was used to hunger. He didn't like it, and he worked very hard to make sure that he wasn't hungry, but he was used to it.

Ranma had never been this hungry.

It was reaching the point where the starving cats – the ones made of bones and sinew and fur that was falling out – were starting to look appetizing.

They were trying to eat him, always hunting, always waiting for when he'd succumb to sleep or hunger-pains, always searching for a weakness to pounce on, always waiting to rip through his skin and feast on his flesh.

He was scared, he was hungry, he was exhausted, and his throat was raw from begging, pleading, shouting for help.

He hadn't heard from his father for days.

Had it been a week? It was hard to tell the time, between exhaustion making him nearly delirious, to the starvation making time twist oddly in his head. He remembered hearing that a human body couldn't last without water for more than three days, but it had rained a while back and it'd made a muddy puddle in the pit.

A part of him knew that he shouldn't have drunk muddy water, because that was sure to have lots of bad things in it, poisonous things, things that would kill him just as surely as thirst would. But the muddy water's poison was a _possibility_ and he'd been dealing with the thirst for _so long_ by then, so he'd ignored his misgivings, and lapped at it just like the cats did.

So it could've been longer than three days, but he didn't think it was longer than ten days. Probably not longer than six days, actually. Because that muddy puddle had dried out far too soon.

He remained bound, his father's knots and the quality of the ropes proving beyond his ability to handle. And as long as he was bound, he couldn't climb out of the pit.

So he was left to starve with the cats, the starving cats who were starting to look so disgustingly tasty.

In the end, there could've been no other outcome.

One of the cats learned the hard way that Ranma's jaw were stronger than their own, as they closed around its neck with a sickening crack.

It was still struggling, its limbs twitching reflexively, when Ranma started to eat it.

The other cats saw it, and they joined forces, because they knew now that the large one would eat them all, that their only chance of survival was to eat him first.

Blood and guts and pain and death.

In the end, even bound as he was, Ranma persevered. The cats, did not.

He was wounded, even worse than before, there were chunks missing from his arms and legs, where their teeth had tore away his flesh. There were scratches over his face, where they'd scratched desperately as he bit them to death.

He was bloodied and bruised, bound and abandoned. But he had food. Glorious, still-warm food.

So he feasted, trying to regain his strength.

Not that his feast mattered much, when half the time his stomach would churn and what he'd eaten would promptly be thrown back up.

He continued regardless, because he knew now that he would have to get out of the pit by his own power.

He hadn't learned any invincible techniques, but there weren't any cats around anyway, so remaining where he was, was pointless. Better to climb out of the pit, even if that seemed impossible.

He'd been gnawing on the ropes for days, to the point where he'd been tasting blood long before he'd finally succumbed to hunger. And now it seemed that the blood was making it easier to slip out, to free himself of the ropes.

So Ranma climbed to his feet, and stared at the dead cats that had so obviously been chewed on, then he turned to the mouth of the pit, and he started to climb.

His father could've probably jumped out, but Ranma wasn't his father. He wasn't strong enough yet, he couldn't do the things that the older man could.

So he climbed, with arms weak from the cramped position that the ropes had enforced, with muscles trembling from exhaustion and near starvation.

He fell, twice, before he finally crawled out into the light.

Staring up at the vast sky above him, Ranma laughed.

It was more a weak hysterical croaking, than his father's booming laugh. But he was free. _Free_.

Sending one final glance to the mouth of the Pit, Ranma crawled some distance away from it. And then he fell asleep.

XXX

Waking back up, after an unknown amount of time where he was _finally_ able to sleep, Ranma's first thoughts went along the lines of 'yuck'.

In the Pit, he'd been too busy trying to stay alive to bother with it, but – even if he wasn't the most hygienic of people – there was something immensely disgusting with waking up in muddy, blood-caked, strips of what-had-once-been-clothes.

Carefully peeling away the fabric that was clinging to his skin, Ranma decided that he'd rather be walking around naked than spend another minute in the things.

Once he'd freed himself of the fabric, Ranma turned towards where he vaguely recalled there being a river.

He wasn't sure if it was an especially _clean_ river, but as long as the water wasn't poisonous acid, he figured that a bath would be a good thing. Then he could try and see if there was anything else that he could be using for clothes. Even if that meant staggering into a nearby farm and looking horribly pitiful, or just grabbing a sheet from someone's laundry.

He might not enjoy stealing, but he'd seen his father do it often enough that he knew _how_ to do it, and this was a bit more of an emergency than he was used to dealing with. Walking around naked was generally considered a bad idea, after all.

Thankfully, the river seemed beautifully clear, which in turn convinced Ranma that he wouldn't be needing any desperate attempts on getting his hands on water. Other than that, this left him with the priorities 'food' and 'clothes'.

Food he could-... well, _technically_ he could return to the Pit for that, but that thought made him want to throw up, so that idea was quickly dismissed. He could also steal something, which he really hoped that he wouldn't be driven to, because it was bad enough that he was going to need clothes – when he obviously didn't have the money to pay for it – without adding more things on his list of 'emergency'.

Stealing in emergencies was a bit of a slippery slope, after all. One day, he might simply start classifying everything as an emergency, and after that it was just a matter of time until he stole as readily as his father did.

Ranma didn't blame his father for being a thief. His father was what he was, and it'd helped Ranma survive several times, so who was he to judge? But he didn't want to become a thief, so he was trying to avoid following in the older man's footsteps.

Frowning slightly in thought, Ranma sighed as he waded out of the water and crawled up on a large boulder standing in the sunlight, knowing from experience that boulders tended to be good places to dry off on.

His best idea, really, was to go looking for nearby civilization. And then try and convince them not to send him off with social services for showing up naked and starved on their doorstep.

Ranma sighed again. Today was going to be a long, long day.

XXX

It'd been one problem after another.

He'd needed to stock up on food, and possibly get the boy some new clothes, because it looked like he was getting into another growth-period.

It wasn't like he would be able to stick around the edge of the Pit anyway, what with the horrible pleading.

Despite what might be said about him, Genma Saotome wasn't a heartless man. He just happened to have been blessed with a son who didn't mind dragging himself through things that would traumatize others, for the sake of becoming the Best.

And now, to hear that same brave young son pleading, begging him to save him-...

It was enough that he'd had to catch himself on several occasions from hauling his son back out of the Pit. They'd already gone this far, and his son would probably be traumatized, and Genma would be damned if he let his own weak heart rob the boy of his potential.

They'd gone too far right now, for him to go back on it. So, if he pulled Ranma back up, he would be forced to toss him back down. No matter how much the child pleaded and begged.

Because that was his duty as his teacher. To make sure that – even from what his heart was starting to suspect was a hellish mistake – the boy would grow to be stronger for it.

So he'd left him in the Pit in order to stock up on food – because his son would undoubtedly be hungry when he was pulled back out for the sake of renewing the fish-guts – other essential supplies – such as the aforementioned fish-guts – and clothing.

It was a reasonably short list, that ought to be done with in six-or-so hours. It wasn't like they were _that_ far away from civilization, after all.

And then things had started to _happen_.

Inconvenience after inconvenience, one on top of the next, stocking themselves into infinity.

Someone he'd stolen from earlier had sent the police after him, so he'd had to remove any evidence that the police had of the event – he wanted to retire peacefully after all, not spend his twilight years locked up in a damp cell somewhere. Then there was the crazy old woman who'd tried braining him with an ax, for reasons that Genma honestly didn't have a clue to. Followed by the complications in trying to find decent training-clothes in Ranma's size. And then stumbling across some temple who still held a grudge from when Genma had been with the Master.

And that wasn't even mentioning the small strands of bad luck that had kept fouling up his timing, or tripped him when he'd been running away, or done any other number of things that just seemed to hopelessly delay him on his mission.

By the time that he finally made it back to the Pit where his son had been training, he was breathing hard, he was bloody, he hadn't slept in days, and he was worried enough about his son that he was muttering 'please be alright' under his breath.

In fact, that was what he'd been muttering for the last three days. And it was beginning to take its toll on his voice.

XXX

It was hungry.

It was always hungry. It was just the way of things. Much as the night was dark and day was not-dark.

But it could smell a lot of blood in the area, so it should be able to pilfer something edible from whatever it was that had died.

It didn't mind terribly much that it'd probably be leftovers. That it was highly unlikely that the original predator that had caused such bloodshed had left behind anything more than that.

It was big, and it could walk far. It would find more food, sooner or later. And for now, eating whatever it was that had been bleeding so badly should be more than enough.

However, when it arrived, all it found were some bloody rags, and a Pit filled with dead cats.

Not to be overly picky about whether cats were truly edible or not, it spent a few moments lumbering around the Pit, trying to see if there was an easy way down.

The closest thing it could find was the marks of something else climbing out of it. But that was enough. Because it was a good climber, and if something else could do it, surely it could do it too.

So it began to climb down into the Pit, only to be sorely disappointed once it reached the floor.

All of the dead cats were pathetic. So starved, so lacking in flesh, that they were almost inedible.

A bit frustrated at the effort that had apparently been pointless, it tried to see if maybe it could get at least something to eat from the starved bunch.

The cats proved themselves only barely edible, and it quickly grew tired of trying to chew the tiny little bones. So it began to climb back out.

Once out in the open air again, it made a beeline for the bloody rags, thinking about what it might do with the things.

It couldn't really think of anything, but picking them up in its muzzle, it wondered if the rags might not be rather comfortable to lay down on.

Sluggishly deciding that it didn't want the whole thing to have been a complete waste of time, it began to drag the rags back to its den, not particularly caring that they were dragged along the ground, even if it did make it slightly harder to walk.

Once back in its den, it set out again to find something edible, only to stumble upon something that had to be pure luck.

A monkey, that had fallen and broken its leg.

It was easy to kill it. It was easy to drag it back to its den.

And it tasted delicious.

XXX

When Genma stumbled into the clearing where the Pit was, he was greeted by a scene from his nightmares.

Blood, blood in the pit, blood around the pit, ropes that had been torn apart, bloody rags that could've only been a shirt once upon a time, and bear-tracks.

He'd been in the wilderness enough to know that bears could be lethal, if you provoked them and weren't capable of beating them down. And whilst Ranma could've easily killed a bear by now, his son was neither present, nor had been in a position to actually fight back against _cats_.

If Ranma had been hindered enough that he couldn't fight cats, it stood to little reason that he wouldn't stand a chance against a bear.

And from the signs, and the way the leaving bear-tracks seemed to be dragging something bloody along the ground...

Genma feared the worst.

Charging off in the direction where the tracks were leading, Genma prayed to every spirit and kami that he'd ever heard of, that his son would be alright. That this was just a silly misunderstanding, and that he wouldn't be stumbling upon a well-fed bear, and a corpse.

Unfortunately, what he stumbled upon was a half-eaten humanoid form, too bloody to see the details of, but clearly the right size for it to belong to his son. Clothes that he knew were Ranma's own, bloodied and torn to shreds. And a bear with a bloody muzzle.

Genma saw red. The bear died.

And then Genma wept.

Because his son was never going to be the Best. He was never going to be a Man Amongst Men. And he was never going to marry one of Tendo's daughters.

Ranma Saotome, Genma's legacy in martial arts, and the son he loved more dearly than anything he could even begin to imagine, was dead.

So he cried the tears of a broken man. And he cursed himself for a fool.

XXX

Burying the half-eaten corpse of his son, was the hardest thing that Genma Saotome had ever done.

And though a part of him wanted to raise a monument by his grave, he couldn't bring himself to do more than leave a marker. A boulder, carved apart with vacuum blades until it clearly showcased how unnatural its position in the middle of the wilderness was.

He couldn't bring himself to write anything on it, even if he knew that he should.

What could he write? What could he possibly write there?

An epitaph? No, neither he nor his son had ever been ones for words. The year of birth and the year of death? No, mere numbers could never express the time that his son had lived. A name? How could he dare presume to call him 'Saotome' when it was Genma's own failure that had been the death of him? And yet, he could never write 'Ranma' without 'Saotome', because that would insinuate that his son hadn't been _good enough_ for his family, and if Genma ever heard a person take those words into their mouths, he would disembowel them were they stood.

No, he couldn't write anything on that stone monolith, marking his son's grave. Marking the grave of a thousand dreams, and an infinite source of pride.

So, he let it stand as it was. Somberly present. Unwaveringly guarding.

It was the best he could do.

He must've spent hours simply staring at it, before he finally gathered the courage to begin his journey back. Towards his son's mother, towards Nodoka.

And hopefully, she would kill him for this, because he deserved it for his inattention, for his weak heart that had caused this, for his stupidity that had attempted this. And once his blood was spilled out, perhaps he could meet his son again in the Beyond.

And maybe he could see Ranma's face one last time, as the soul of his son spat at him, for the part that he'd played in his death. It was the most that he could dare hope for.

XXX

It'd taken him nearly two days to locate something that he could actually wear – in no small part because of his lingering exhaustion – and Ranma was more than a little bit nervous over how long it'd taken him to get back to the Pit. To the place where his father would assuredly come to pick him up.

He'd been worried that he might've missed the man, but his worries quickly settled as the only tracks around the area were those of a bear that had apparently been attracted by the smell of cat-blood.

It never occurred to the young boy that his father had mastered sneaking to the point where he had to consciously make an effort in order to leave tracks behind.

And so, Ranma Saotome waited for his father's inevitable return.

And waited.

XXX

Nodoka had nearly cut his head off, before she'd collapsed in tears.

In the end, he wasn't the only one of them who wished to hurry along to the afterlife, and somehow in the middle of their mutual despair they managed to stay alive.

She cried, she raged, she cursed him for a fool. She sobbed, she yelled, she cursed herself even worse.

Genma, in his solemn guilt, became a rock that she desperately needed. And despite the years that he'd been away, it seemed as if they'd grown closer than ever.

Even if they both cursed themselves for letting it happen.

XXX

It'd been a month.

He'd waited a month.

He'd waited by the edge of that Pit, until the smell of blood and guts and dead cats had finally faded away into nothing.

And there had been not a sign of his father.

So Ranma, finally – after nearly a week of simply staring into the distance, not truly able to comprehend what had to have happened – began to gather his things.

His father had left him there, in the Pit, and he'd never returned.

This obviously meant that his father had gotten into some trouble, or been injured somehow, or maybe he'd been caught by the cops again. So it made sense for Ranma to go searching for him.

He spent another week trying desperately to find any track whatsoever.

The end result of his search left him staring with incomprehension as the police-officer tried to calmly explain to him that parents didn't just up and leave their kids in the middle of the woods. Not unless they wanted to get rid of them.

But that couldn't be true, because Ranma was going to be the Best, his father had told him that himself. And how could he be the Best, if his father wasn't there to train him?

By the time he finally managed to break free of his confusion, he was forced to escape from the police station that the officer had taken him to. Because his father had always told him that nothing good ever came from spending time with cops.

He spent nearly two days meandering aimlessly around, trying halfheartedly to search for his father's non-existent tracks, before he broke down and cried.

He was going to be a Man Amongst Men, and they didn't cry like little girls, but Genma had _left him_, and how was he supposed to be his father's son if he didn't have a _father_?

So he cried, because he was a child without parents.

XXX

In the end, the revelation of his abandonment didn't actually impact his way of life overly much.

Sure, it left him in a miserable mood, and it gave him nightmares, and the empty roads that he'd all but grown up on suddenly seemed to be so impossibly lonely. But Ranma had already survived on the road for over a month at that point, all by his lonesome.

The attitude had changed, the implications had changed, but in the end Ranma somehow managed to climb back onto his feet and continue to hunt for food, for shelter, for water, for the essentials.

He'd always loved being on the road with his father, always going somewhere where he could learn more, where he could advance his goal of becoming the Best.

Now though-... He didn't like it. Every moment spent on the road, hunting for food, huddling in some lackluster shelter as a storm raged above him-... all of those moments, he remembered what it'd been like to be with his father, to have him steal the food that they so desperately needed – so that Ranma would never have to – to have him use his larger bulk to protect him from the worst of the winds, and to have him smile that proud smile of his whenever Ranma had outdone himself in his training.

They were moments during which he was forced to remember that he no longer had a father. That his father had tossed him away, had left him, had abandoned him forever.

Still, it was the only life that he knew, and a stubborn part of him refused to let this be the end of his goal. He would become the Best, he wouldn't need his father, he would do it all on his own, he would figure it out, and he when he'd become the Best, he would-... he would-... Ranma wasn't entirely sure what he would do.

A part of him wanted to use being the Best to get his father to take him back, to make his father love him again, another wanted to use it to get revenge on the man who'd abandoned him, and a third simply refused to give up on the only goal he could remember ever having.

So he continued trudging along the road, hunting for food, trying to think of ways to train.

He was a child, and as such his imagination was a powerful thing, but just because he could imagine that it might be something he wanted to be able to do, he had no clue as to whether or not it was possible, or how to go about achieving the result if it was.

He wanted to be able to fly, because the Saotome-school specialized in aerial combat, but it wasn't like he could just sprout wings, and though he had _some_ experience with chi, it still wasn't enough that he could really use it on a conscious level. Not to mention trying to use it to mold it into what he wanted to attempt.

He simply didn't have the experience that was necessary in order to get started.

So he walked, and he trained as best as he could.

That was, after all, all that he could do.

XXX

**A/n: The thing is, this story is more of a prelude to the actual story than anything. The original idea was to have him wander into another anime and have him learn how to fight in that one, preferably without getting involved in any harem-shenanigans.**

**Again, let me reiterate. The idea was to have Ranma simply be a martial artist who wants to become the Best. Romance wasn't an impossibility (as in: Ranma could potentially fall in love with someone) but this wasn't supposed to be a harem-fic, and romance wasn't supposed to be the main part of it.**

**I couldn't quite figure out which other anime to use though (understand that I haven't watched a lot of martial arts series, and aren't planning on watching much of anything in the near-future) so... yeah.**

XXX

XXX (**Possible Routes**) XXX

Negimaverse:  
>Takamichi Route – Humor, Adventure<br>Ayaka Route – Hurt/Comfort, Family

XXX

XXX

XXX **(Takamichi Route, Negima)** XXX

It was a routine assignment.

There'd been word about a demon or spirit causing trouble, and the dean of Mahora wanted it taken care of, preferably without involving the Kansai Magic Association.

Everything had followed the regular pattern of interviewing witnesses, finding the unknown creature's tracks, and setting off to beat it to a pulp – unless it proved friendly and was willing to face the consequences of causing the trouble that had originally called him to the area.

It hadn't even been especially hard to track it, and its reaction to his casual greeting was violent enough that he didn't have to worry about all that annoying diplomatic crap. All in all, a very satisfying assignment.

Except for the fact that the demon had already been bleeding from a stump that had seemingly only recently been one of its arms, and there was this strange little pile of dirty rags next to some rather heavy destruction of the environment.

Frowning slightly at this oddness to his usual routine, Takamichi moved in closer to the pile. Only to realize that the pile of bloody rags was breathing.

Frown growing more pronounced, Takamichi knelt down by the side of what could only be a child. An injured child.

Turning the form over, revealed that his guess was correct, but also proved that it'd been a lapse in judgment to let his guard down.

The child in his arms lashed out with a fist, quick enough that Takamichi barely had time to blink, and broke his nose with a wet crunch that made colors explode across his retina.

It hurt, yes. But he was experienced enough in battle that he could easily suppress a bit of pain in order to deal with a threat. However, the broken nose caused his eyes to instinctively water, which made the world blur oddly, and it was suddenly a lot harder to breathe now that any air-intake had to be done through his mouth, not to mention the fact that the shock of it all had sent him off-balance, and that his still-lit cigarette had fallen as his head rocked back with the impact.

All of this meant that he had no chance in hell of stopping the child's second attack.

Seemingly aware that, with Takamichi already well on his way into falling backwards on his ass because of the child's first punch, any follow-up punch to his cranium or the like would have its impact lessened by him already moving in the same direction, the child instead lashed out with a kick to the side of his knee.

Another flash of pain told the older of the two that the kid was a lot stronger than it had any right to be, as his leg twisted badly to go along with an unpleasant sound that he was guessing would probably force him into bed-rest – even _with_ magically assisted healing.

Still in the middle of falling backwards on his ass – as much from the shock of the attack, as the actual strength behind it – and now with a leg that was twisted oddly and a possibly fractured knee, Takamichi decided that perhaps diplomacy was desperately needed. At least until he stopped seeing stars.

Thus it was, that Takamichi met a young boy who'd never had a place to call 'home' before.

And Asuna gained an adoptive little brother. An event that she'd be _very_ uncomfortable with explaining to her closest childhood-friend. Because it was Ayaka who'd wanted one, and it was horribly unfair that it was Asuna who'd received one.

Not that Ranma particularly cared about either of those things, as he would be far too busy adapting what he'd glimpsed during Takamichi's battle with the demon into his own fighting style.

He would go on the record saying "this would've been so much easier if I hadn't spent most of the fight trying to get demon-blood out of my eyes". Takamichi, on his part, would be endlessly relieved that Ranma hadn't been able to replicate the Kankaho, because there was already something deeply unsettling about a seven-year-old managing to rip off a demon's arm with nothing but his bare hands – and teeth, the kid had _sharp_ teeth – without giving said child the ability to remake the landscape on a whim.

XXX (TR,N) (The fight against Kotaro) XXX

Asuna stared incredulously at the dog-boy riding a spider.

The way that he was going about this reminded her of someone. And it reminded her of that someone rather insistently.

Following a hunch, Asuna adopted the most pitiably vulnerable expression she had. "You'd attack a girl with a giant spider?" She asked, letting her lip quiver in horror, and her eyes fill up with tears.

The boy flinched as if struck, but coughed to hide it. "Don't worry lady, it's just to keep you out of the fight." He reassured her, but continued on with his plan.

But Asuna wasn't done, because the kid had just proven himself to be a perfect target of a certain little-brother-related technique of hers.

"What kind of talk is that?!" She demanded, making sure to keep a panicky tone present in her voice. "A real man should be able to take care of both of us, without risking a girl's exposure to _bugs_!"

The boy paused, turning towards her with narrowed eyes. "I ain't gonna fall for that." He stated flatly.

Which – if he was anything like her little brother – basically meant that he only needed a _tiny_ little push in the right direction. So Asuna sank to her knees and started to whimper in fear of the spider.

The kid made a horribly pained face, before jumping in front of her to disable her with his own two hands – because he was chivalrous like that – which put him within reach for Asuna's twist and grapple.

Looking down at the kid that was now disabled underneath her, Asuna smirked at him as he struggled feebly against her grip. "Please. If I can keep Ranma down with this, then you're not getting loose."

Negi stared agape at his Ministra, suddenly recalling something about Asuna having an adoptive little brother who enjoyed martial arts.

The kid however, froze solid. "'Ranma'?" He asked, eyes wide.

"Yeah, my little brother. He's crazy good with fighting, but a complete sucker when dealing with girls." Asuna grinned cheerfully.

The boy stared up at her from his twisted position. "As in, Ranma, the guy infamous for literally _biting off_ a demon's arm when he was seven?"

Asuna blinked dumbly. "Uhh... well... he was adopted at around that time... so... I guess maybe?" She agreed hesitantly, before muttering to herself. "Didn't know he was into the whole magic-thing though. Brat's been holding out on me."

"Can I fight him?" Kotaro stared up at her with sparkling eyes.

Asuna absently heard how Negi managed to trip and fall – despite standing still – some distance away, but was mostly occupied with the thought that this kid really was _exactly_ like Ranma.

"Are all the brats around me crazy?" She wondered silently to herself.

XXX (TR,N) (Magical Lessons) XXX

"So... why can't he use the Kankaho?" Asuna finally asked, a little bit curious.

Eva snorted a laugh. "Because that kid is too desperate." She told the other girl bluntly.

"Umm, what does that mean, master?" Negi wondered confusedly.

Eva seemed to spend a moment or two trying to figure out how to explain it, before she shrugged. "The Kankaho necessitates that the user has 'no self'. A meditation technique of sorts. Nothing especially rare." Shaking her head, she turned to the core of the matter. "But that kid can't _not_ have a sense of self, because that's all that he's had to cling to." She paused, making a disgusted face. "You've heard about the cats, right?"

Nods were exchanged as both of the listeners turned green at the memory of why exactly Ranma disliked cats.

It takes a special kind of stomach to remain unmoved when a child explains that they don't like cats because they 'taste like piss, mud, and blood' and that the way they 'twitch in between his teeth' kind of ruined his appetite.

"Right. In part because of that, the kid is trying to hold onto 'himself', so he can't allow himself to 'become nothing', which is the foundation of the Kankaho. Thus, he can't learn it." Eva concluded.

"So... he needs to let go of his ego?" Asuna guessed.

Eva threw her a sharp glare. "No. Because if he stopped holding onto himself, that would cause a whole new set of issues. Basically, unless you want to risk having him go berserk, give up on teaching him that technique."

"Is he unstable?" Negi asked worriedly.

"Not any more than gorilla-girl here." Eva waved the question off, not particularly bothered by the glare Asuna shot her. "However, the kind of meditation that forces him to 'become nothing'... it'd end badly. Give him stuff to help him think calmly, or something like that, and the brat would probably thrive on it. But the moment that you start trying to teach him how to 'remove' things from his head, from his sense of self..." She trailed off, shrugging carelessly. "I honestly have no idea what he'd do, but I doubt that it'd be pleasant."

Asuna stared at the vampire for a long moment, before nodding. She couldn't really understand that, because the Kankaho came to her as second nature, but Eva was being sincere. And even if the vampire wasn't a very nice person, she wasn't the type to lie about this kind of stuff.

XXX

XXX

XXX **(Ayaka Route, Negima)** XXX

Ayaka stared at the boy standing in front of her.

Slowly, carefully, hesitatingly, she reached out.

The boy's eyes followed her hand suspiciously, but didn't flinch away when she finally touched his cheek.

He was still wearing rags, he was clearly underfed, and he was covered in grime, but even if he didn't look anything like it, she couldn't help herself. A boy without family, a girl without a brother.

Sharp blue eyes widened in surprise as the older girl wrapped him in a hug.

And even if he wanted to go back to the road, to train, to become the Best, to prove himself, Ranma couldn't bring himself to push her away. So, for the first time in his life, Ranma simply surrendered.

He'd come home.

XXX (AR,N) (Negi's entrance) XXX

Asuna shook her head in a mixture of frustrated exasperation and sadness.

Ranma was – no matter how much manners he'd been instilled with since he'd been adopted by the Yukihiro family – a martial artist at heart. Which meant that the only ones who seemed to understand him were people like Ku Fei. And since they understood each other, they got along well.

So despite that Ayaka wanted to monopolize Ranma's affection, he was rather friendly with the Chinese girl. Which obviously led to jealousy-issues, which led to a rather painfully bumpy relationship between the two adoptive siblings.

That had been the norm ever since Ranma had first been introduced to them. When the kid was still fresh off the road, and looking more like a street-urchin than the healthy brat that he'd grown into becoming.

And now-... Now Negi had entered the picture.

Asuna suppressed the urge to wince at just how that bumpy relationship was going to cause a lot of collateral damage this time around.

Ayaka had always had a thing for younger boys, and though she'd calmed down about it somewhat after gaining a little brother, it really hadn't surprised anyone that she'd been immediately smitten by their new teacher.

However, Ayaka wasn't the only one who suffered from jealousy-issues, as Ranma had proven time and time again whenever Ayaka briefly encountered some cute boy. And now one of those 'cute boys' had become a fixture in their lives.

Yeah, Asuna really wasn't looking forward to the fireworks of this particular event.

Because with Ranma's experiences in life, he'd probably end up classifying the overly-polite-genius as a 'better little brother', which – thanks to the insecurities that his bastard of a father had left him with – would make him all but certain that Ayaka was going to abandon him.

And Ranma wasn't the type of person to simply let things happen. No, he would start cutting himself off from Ayaka so that that expected rejection would hurt less, and Ayaka would probably be too caught up in her recent crush on their teacher to notice, and then everything would snowball until suddenly Ayaka couldn't help but realize just how far away she'd really pushed her little brother in her ignorance.

And hopefully that would happen _before_ Ranma disappeared back onto the road, never to be seen or heard from again.

Not that Asuna wasn't going to help the kid out, but she could only do so much, and Asuna was getting the feeling that Negi's and Ranma's relationship was about to start off with so much antipathy that Ranma might actually end up concocting a plan to assassinate the diminutive teacher.

That kid could get _vicious_ when it was related to his sister.

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	4. Half a Piece

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**Story**: [Half a Piece]

**Summary**: A ship full of Nerima-Idiots, somehow ends up in the seas of One Piece. Do I really need to say more?

**Genre**: Humor, Crack

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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Ryoga took a deep breath, reveling in the scent of ocean salt.

The wood of the ship shifted and creaked minutely underneath his feet, alive in a way that only a ship could truly be.

Glancing behind them, he noticed that they seemed to have dodged another storm, which would probably frustrate Nabiki somewhat. The girl was still upset over the near-unanimous decision to put Ryoga in charge of steering the ship, after the many times that the ship had nearly capsized when one of the other members had tried their hands at it.

Sometimes, it'd been freak storms, with winds and lightning and waves. Other times, it'd been sea-monsters suddenly appearing from the ocean's depths to swallow them whole – though, admittedly, those creatures rarely lasted long against the crew's combined might.

In the end, Ryoga had been charged with steering the ship simply because, even if they spent nearly all of their time lost at sea, at least they didn't have to spend all their time worrying about their imminent demise whilst they were lost at sea.

A part of him wanted to be insulted that they thought so little of him, but it wasn't really like he was going to argue about the verdict. He liked steering the ship, smelling the salt on the breeze, watching the sun skitter erratically across the sky – in that way that had always made him wonder why people seemed to think that it followed a stable pattern – and most importantly _lead the way_.

He was so sick and tired of all of the times when he'd had to follow another, when he had to rely on another's good will and be led around by the hand as if he was a child. But here, with this ship, there was nothing like that. He could go wherever he wanted, without complaints – except if their current harbor turned out to be inhabited by homicidal cannibals, because Nabiki was kind of holding a grudge about that one.

They relied on him, and he got them where they should be.

Well... he got them to where they should be _sooner or later_, which was still a lot better than Ranma's attempts – which had had them inches away from running aground on more than one occasion – or pretty much anyone else's.

It still annoyed Nabiki to high heavens though, since she was the one in charge of the ship's log, which meant that she was the one who had to explain how they got there. And how they managed to drop by all of the various other places on their way there. 'Other places' that supposedly weren't in any way connected to the locations that the maps insisted that they must've passed.

Which just proved what shitty map-makers this world was filled with.

However, shitty map-makers or not, Ryoga had come to truly enjoy his time here. His Jusenkyo curse had thankfully been cured before the Dislocation Event, which meant that he – unlike the rest of the crew's Jusenkyo-affected members – didn't have to worry about sea-spray suddenly activating the curse.

He still got lost, though that had seemingly calmed somewhat ever since he'd been put in charge of steering the ship – to the point where he not only didn't get lost in the ship itself, but could usually make it back to the ship from any harbor they arrived in, as long as he had a few days to do it in – and he still couldn't beat the smug smirk off of Ranma's face, but life was pretty good.

It had been a bit sad to be separated from Akari, but then their relationship had grown... strained, ever since he'd been cured of his Jusenkyo curse, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

And besides that, he got to see Ranma make a fool of himself on a regular basis, which was always a plus.

Though he'd wish that he would stop playing with poor Akane's heart.

Frowning faintly at that thought, Ryoga turned his attention towards where Soun and Genma were playing shogi.

They'd been forbidden to play it on deck, since they kept getting in people's way, and they'd been forbidden to play it in their chambers, since nobody trusted Genma where they couldn't keep an eye on him, so they'd petulantly begun playing it in the rigging.

How exactly they were keeping the board steady enough to play – in a place where most normal people would have issues even with keeping themselves from being torn away from the ropes by strong winds and sudden shifts – was considered a sort of curious mystery by all who'd observed it.

Ranma, for example, was convinced that there was a technique at play, and would sometimes decide to observe the two fathers with all of the intensity that could be expected from the technique-stealing bastard.

Nabiki was mostly just trying to figure out if what they could do could be marketed at a circus or something. And most of the others would at least spare the two players a glance every now and then.

There was just something about a panda balancing on a rope along with a man and a shogi-board, cheating blatantly, drinking heavily, and somehow not losing any pieces despite hefty winds, that was just... kind of weird, even for people who'd grown used to the madness of Nerima.

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Garp looked curiously at the younger man. "Late? Why would the ship be late?"

"They're always late, sir." The younger man explained, looking slightly disgusted. "They get lost."

Garp spent a moment trying to figure that out, before beginning to snicker. There was just something about a group of Marines – who were, according to protocol at least, always supposed to be serious – managing to get lost at sea repeatedly enough that their superiors were expecting it, that was kind of hilarious.

The younger man didn't seem very happy with him finding the situation amusing, but gritted his teeth and bore the older man's humor with something resembling stoicism.

Still grinning, Garp shook his head. "Why don't they just get a new navigator?" He asked.

"They need a new helmsman, if anything." The man grumbled bitterly. "Unfortunately, nobody else can stand being at sea with the rest of the crew for any longer stretches of time, and out of the crew, he's the only one who won't accidentally capsize them."

Garp found his grin stretching again as he realized that it sounded a bit as if the younger man had hoped and prayed on multiple occasions that they would change helmsman anyway, just so that he wouldn't have to deal with them any longer. It wasn't as if they could be 'late' if they were all too busy with being 'dead' after all.

"So, when will they be arriving, do you think?" Garp wondered.

The other man groaned. "It could be days, or weeks, or in a few hours." He shook his head. "Honestly, we've stopped bothering to keep track of it. We only force them to report where they've been so that we can make them just as miserable as we are by making them write ridiculously long reports about it."

Garp couldn't help it. He started to laugh.

XXX

Genma made a noise of horror and despair. Soun did much the same, but he also managed to cry a bit.

"Master!" They greeted their current captain. "We didn't expect to see you again so soon!"

Happosai stared at his two students. "That wouldn't be because you got me drunk in the last harbor, and sailed away with my ship, would it?" He questioned suspiciously.

"No! No, not at all! It wasn't that at all!" The two fathers hurriedly tried to reassure him.

"Then was it because you drugged my breakfast, shoved me down a cannon, and fired me towards the horizon with as much gunpowder as you could, just a few hours ago?" He continued his interrogation.

"No! That's not at all something that we did!" The two fathers lied in chorus.

"Well, that's great then!" Happosai cheered with a happy smile, before wandering off.

Both fathers breathed a sigh of relief at the disappearance of the person who was technically their captain.

Not that even their insanely strict superiors seemed to mind overly much about hearing that their crew had mutinied against their captain at any available opportunity. They had, after all, met the perverted letch of a man. They most likely also knew that even if only three-or-so reports of mutiny were reported every month, it was more truthful to say that there were about fifteen _attempted_ mutinies every _week_, and that the only reason those weren't reported was because Happosai couldn't be bothered to fill in the proper paperwork for it.

Nobody liked Happosai, nobody agreed with him, nobody wanted to follow his orders, and nobody would've minded terribly much if he was swallowed by a sea-monster and never heard from again. So, exactly how he'd become captain of the ship... well, nobody else had been in a position to complain about it at the time, and now they were unfortunately stuck with the disgusting little troll.

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Nabiki hurriedly ducked behind the closest available cover, as apparently they'd managed to stumble their way into a small pirate-fleet this time around.

It was frustrating to her, that whilst Ryoga could easily avoid storms and sea-monsters without even trying, he couldn't for the life of him stop them from landing smack in the middle of pirates.

Otherwise, their current job would be absolutely perfect. They got paid to travel around on a ship, collect taxes, and just generally look good in snazzy uniforms – hey, she might not consider the male martial artists dating-material, but she could appreciate getting the eye-candy to play dress-up.

But noooo, they had to get themselves caught up in a fire-fight for justice, and other crap like that. Dammit, she sometimes hated the fact that none of those present were willing to run away at first sign of opposition.

Still, it wasn't as if they were going to demand that she went into the fight, so that was a plus. As long as she could hide herself away in a barrel below deck somewhere, she ought to be just fine. It wasn't like anything could ever actually make Happosai _remain_ beaten, and he'd save her sooner or later, if only so that he could steal her underwear.

Thankfully on behalf of her general-approach hidden-barrel plan, she'd long since reached the point where she always kept an empty barrel readily available for that specific tactic.

Catching sight of Ryoga getting hit in the face with a cannonball out of the corner of her eye, Nabiki decided to herself that now would be a good time to start her way below deck.

XXX

The pirate grinned at them.

"And what are you going to do about it, marines?" He taunted. "You're exhausted, wounded, outnumbered, and horribly outgunned."

Ranma spat out some blood, smirking at the larger man. "So what? What are you gonna do with all that, huh? You gonna kill us or something?"

The pirate looked briefly incredulous. "I'm a _pirate_. Of course I'm going to bloody well kill ya, you slimy little shit!" He declared as he aimed the gun at the marine's head.

Ranma continued to stare up at him, seemingly finding this statement to be somewhat hilarious, from the way that his smirk grew bigger.

Ryoga croaked, a sound that was a rather obvious laughter, despite it being choked off through a mixture of broken ribs, and a pierced lung. "Kill us?" He wheezed groggily from his own spot on the ground. "Man... I've been trying to kill that bastard for _years_." He coughed. "And now I'm-... I'm going to be shown up by a bunch of idiots?"

The pirate frowned at the marine who'd somehow managed to survive having an entire ship's worth of ammunition launched at his head. Hell, it was as if their bullets hadn't even scratched him. Not that they hadn't been able to beat him down after some liberal usage of cannonballs.

"Shut up and die." He ordered the near-invulnerable marine, beginning to pull the trigger.

"I'm such a failure, I can't even kill Ranma after so long, and someone else could do it on their first try...! That makes me so _depressed_!" Ryoga growled loudly to himself, his entire body covered in a sudden green glow. "Shishi Hokudan!"

A large portion of the group of pirates suddenly found themselves blasted into unconsciousness.

Not to be outdone by his rival, Ranma had gleefully enveloped himself in a similarly glowing field of blue. Because, whilst he might not be perfectly at peace with the sentiment of having a skilled martial artist trying to kill him, the fact that his rival had admitted to deliberately not pulling any punches to keep them short of lethal, meant that he'd actually being survived quite literally everything Ryoga could throw at him. For _years_.

And that must mean that he was even more amazing at martial arts than he'd thought that he was.

The rest of the pirates soon joined their fellows in blissful oblivion.

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Ryoga sighed as he watched Ranma fight with his father over the fact that the part-panda hadn't been helping out with cleaning up the pirates – the bald man had been too busy with stealing everything on the pirate ships that wasn't nailed down to help them out.

He'd accidentally complimented Ranma.

Oh, how would he live with the _shame_?

At the time, he'd been too busy trying to work himself down into a proper depression – something that had been a reoccurring difficulty since he'd been cured of his Jusenkyo curse and appointed helmsman of their ship – to really pay attention to what he'd been saying. Which had led to him actually complimenting Ranma.

It was-... it was just so-... so humiliating! So shameful! So _awful_!

It was nearly enough to make him depressed all over again.

Then Shampoo started cheering Ranma on, and suddenly Mousse was attacking the mast for flirting with Shampoo. So Akane grabbed her mallet, Ukyo grabbed her spatula, Soun started crying, Happosai splashed Ranma with water so that he could hug her bosom, Kuno charged forward to be with his 'pigtailed girl', and general chaos reigned supreme.

Ryoga briefly considered joining them, but then decided that he couldn't possibly navigate them through wherever the hell they were, if he was busy beating the crap out of Ranma.

So he sighed again, and did the next best thing.

Grinning widely, Ryoga pulled the lever next to him, causing the deck to shift underneath the combatants feet, and landing the whole lot of them into the ocean.

The ocean that was filled with sea-kings.

Smiling blissfully at the indignant yells from Ranma at being dumped into the sea – again – Ryoga decided that he could live with having accidentally complimented Ranma once, as long as he made sure not to repeat it.

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Nabiki shook her head, she wasn't exactly happy at being separated from Kasumi, but she was glad that the tranquil girl had been on a date with doctor Tofu when the rest of them had gotten themselves stuck in this mess.

Thankfully, between Ukyo's okonomiyaki and Shampoo's ramen, they weren't going to be starving anytime soon. Especially since the two girls in question were willing to fight Akane to the death should the cooking-inept girl ever try and get into their kitchen.

That elder Cologne, the principal, Kodachi, and miss Hinako had all been excluded from the trip as well... well really, that was almost a bonus.

Sure, Cologne could've kept Happosai from acting out too badly, but considering how often their captain-in-name-only spent off-ship, for one reason or another, it wasn't like they really needed someone other than Ranma to keep the perverted old letch off of them. And with how Cologne had a tendency to be a manipulative old crone-... Nabiki for one was more than happy not to have to deal with the ancient woman's scheming on top of the political chaos of this new world.

She was however, a lot less pleased with the fact that the Kuno-family's pet-ninja, Sasuke, had managed to get caught up in it along with Tatewaki. Not so much because of his abilities, as because Kuno had ordered the ninja to remake the ship somehow.

And the next thing everyone had known, Sasuke had gone completely insane and decided to trap the whole ship, not to mention creating complicated mechanisms that sent the entirety of the deck to catapulting people into the sea.

All attempts to get the crazy ninja to stop had... not ended well.

Then again, it didn't seem like anyone other than herself truly minded the fact that there were lethal traps in their bunks.

Nabiki made a face of disgust. Crazy stupid martial artists.

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The man at the bar sipped at his sake, staring curiously at the younger man.

"So, how did you end up with the Marines, kid?" He asked, glancing meaningfully at just how utterly disheveled the younger man's clothing was. After all, Marines were pretty damn big on looking presentable at all times.

Ranma finally raised his eyes from the now-empty plate of crappy bar food. "Well, the Old Letch wanted to be a pirate, but we figured that that'd make Kasumi all disappointed-like, so we joined the Marines instead."

There was a moment of silence between the two of them as screams, shouts, and the sounds of extreme violence could be heard from outside the bar.

"And I'm pretty sure that that noise means that we're mutinying again." Ranma hummed thoughtfully, seemingly more interested in whether to ask for seconds or not.

"'Again'?" The man felt his eyes growing slightly wide at the thought that a crew of Marines would survive execution the _first_ time they mutinied. Or at least without getting classified as pirates.

Ranma shrugged and ordered seconds – the food tasted like crap, but it was cheap and pretty filling, and Nabiki was cracking down on their budget again. "The Old Letch ended up as our captain somehow. And well... everyone hates his guts, so nobody minds if we try to kill him off every now and then." He sighed. "Certainly helps keeps his crime-sprees down to a minimum."

"Your captain is a criminal?" The man asked incredulously.

"They've actually named a new type of sexual harassment after him." Ranma admitted as he began devouring his second portion of bar-food at ridiculous speeds. "But it's not like he'd kill someone, so outside of your dignity and all, he's pretty harmless."

There was a furious roar coming from the street, followed by an old man's cheerful laughter.

Then the doors blew open.

"Ranma m'boy! Help an old man with carrying his things!" And thus saying, the tiny person who'd entered the bar, hurled a gigantic bag of underwear at Ranma.

Who responded with as much dignity as was possible during the circumstances. "No way, you old fart! Moko Takabisha!" And threw a bright ball of energy at the man's face, exploding the bag of 'silky darlings' in the process.

Those were the last sensible words spoken in the bar.

The owner would of course be reimbursed for the damage caused, but he would still have to rebuild the whole damn place from the ground up, which meant that by the time he opened his bar back up, it was an entirely _new_ bar that people could say sensible things in.

It also decided on the sensible policy of not serving Marines. Ever again.

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**A/n: A while back I made two One Piece X-Overs, one for Ranma and one for Harry Potter (Collection Chapter 11: WANTED). Needless to say (because the HP one was like a single page in total) this was the version that devoured my muse's interest. Probably because it's insane.**


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